The Twelve Doctors
by Greyhound005
Summary: Clara Oswald is in need of a relaxing trip, and the Doctor knows just the place. Problem is, his past selves have all decided to there too, at the same time. With a paradox in the making, all twelve Doctors must find out what is trapping their TARDISes, all while some creature is capturing his (their?) friends. As the paradox thickens, the Doctors must face his greatest enemy.
1. Hartnell

_Hello, all! Welcome to my story,_ The Twelve Doctors. _I originally wrote this story to welcome Peter Capaldi to Doctor Who, but I guess since we're now waiting on Series Nine, this will now become a wish for yet another awesome season!_

 _Before I begin, I would like to thank a couple people. First would be Peter Capaldi himself, for being such a wonderful Doctor. Next would be two people who I know by the names of Warp and Alvarez. Thank you Warp, for designing such a beautiful cover for this book. And thank you Alvarez, for being my first reader and encouraging me to finish._

 _Disclaimer: Though I would like to,_ _ **I do not own Doctor Who.**_ _And now, on with the story!_

 _Chapter One_

Somewhere, in a swirling vortex that exists outside of Time itself, flew a police box that was not a police box.

Instead, it was a ship that could take its pilot and his companions anywhere in time and space. The pilot, commonly known as "The Doctor," referred to this strange ship as the TARDIS. Currently, the Doctor was in his Twelfth incarnation, and travelled with his young friend Clara Oswald. They had seen many wonders together, and would see more still.

In the spacious console room of the TARDIS, the Doctor and Clara were trying to decide where to go next.

"How about the Waterfalls of Garmon High? I haven't been there in years."

"Or, Doctor, we could go to Krach-gee-ko, you know, the planet with the fish?"

"Oh, fish are boring. Giant bears are much, much better."

"Doctor, we are not going to the forests of Queg."

"Why not?"

"Because-" Clara fumbled around for a decent explanation. "Because their favorite food is human."

"Tough for you," the Doctor remarked.

"But Time Lords looks like humans, don't they?" asked Clara sweetly. "And the bears won't know the difference until it's too late for you."

"All right, all right, do you have a better place in mind?" the Doctor asked. He looked very annoyed.

"Well, not a specific place," Clara said as she walked closer to the hexagonal console in the middle of the room. "But maybe somewhere relaxing? Cos you know, being chased through a Dalek by its antibodies doesn't really top my list as one of my favorite places in the universe."

The Doctor thought for a while. "As a matter of fact, I do know somewhere calm and relaxing."

 _That's a first,_ thought Clara. "All right then, where is it?"

"In a moment, we're almost there."

"Already?"

"We were close. Aha!" The TARDIS landed with a _thunk!_ He turned around and faced her. "Open the doors, Clara Oswald."

Grinning from ear to ear, Clara obeyed. Before her, she saw a meadow, with hills and forests in the distance, and a ruined castle not too far away. The air was crisp, but not at all cold. There was not a sound to be heard, apart from the wind rustling the grass.

"Welcome to the Eye of Orion. The most peaceful place in the whole entire universe," the Doctor said as he swept out of the TARDIS and spread his long arms out as if to try and take in the whole planet. The breeze pulled slightly at his grey hair and his long, dark jacket, exposing the red interior. He turned around to find that Clara had disappeared back inside the TARDIS.

"Clara?" he called.

"Yeah?" she responded, poking her head out of the doors a second later, carrying a towel and a little wicker basket.

"What is this?" the Doctor looked confused as he gestured to her quarry.

"Oh, this? I thought that we might have a picnic. Here-" she handed the basket to the Doctor and set the blanket down in front of the police box. "What d'you say we relax for once?" Clara asked as she sat down and patted the blanket, indicating that the Doctor should sit down too. He was just handing the basket down to her when he suddenly looked up, his bottle-opener eyebrows shooting up his face. Clara noticed his surprise.

"Doctor? What's wrong? What-" Clara stopped mid-sentence as she saw what- or better, who- the Doctor was staring at. Not too far away, and coming closer, was a group of people. Four people, to be precise. And the reason the Doctor was staring at them was because he recognised one of them. Well, actually, all of them.

The tallest was a man with fair hair, and was wearing a beige jacket and matching pants. He seemed to be looking anxious as he looked at the TARDIS, and was talking to a pretty woman with brown hair who was wearing a purple air hostess uniform. Behind these two was a boy and another girl who were hurrying to keep up.

"Doctor, who-" Clara tried to ask.

"No!" The Twelfth Doctor protested. "No, they can't be here. This never happened!"

"What never happened? _Listen_ to me, Doctor!" Clara shouted, trying to get his attention.

"Them, Clara, them! They never came here, not now!"

As the Doctor and Clara's voices rose, the strangers turned their attention from the TARDIS to them. They hurried forward to see if anything was wrong. The taller man reached them first.

"Are you alright?" he asked, stopping by their blanket.

"Yes, we're alright, now go away," the Doctor snapped. By now, the man's companions had caught up to him.

"Doctor," the air hostess said in a distinct Australian accent, "Who are these people? How come they've got the TARDIS?"

"Because we arrived in it, Tegan," the Twelfth Doctor responded for the Fifth Doctor, the man in the beige cricket outfit.

"How do you know my name?" Tegan asked.

"How do you know her name?" Clara asked at the same time.

"Because I'm him," the Twelfth Doctor pointed to the Fifth Doctor.

All four companions fell silent. The boy who was travelling with the Fifth, Adric, spoke up. "You mean you've changed your face again?"

"More than a couple times." Twelve responded gravely.

This jogged Clara's memory. "I saw you! On Gallifrey, when we-"

"Gallifrey? We haven't been to Gallifrey," Nyssa, the other girl, said. She shot a quizzical look to her Doctor. Clara and Twelve were saved from explaining with the arrival of even more people.

 _VVVVOOOORRPP, VVOOOOORRPPP, THUNK!_

Another TARDIS materialised, its POLICE BOX sign faintly glowing. The doors creaked open to reveal another Doctor and his companion. The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble hopped out of their ship and surveyed the group already gathered before them. Ten looked confused as he looked at old friends, and friends yet to come.

"See, Donna? I told you that there would be a welcoming party!" he remarked brightly. Donna rolled her eyes.

"Who are you?" Adric asked to Ten and Donna.

"I'm Donna, and Beanpole next to me is the Doctor."

"Another one?"

"Yes," Twelve decided that he didn't want to stay quiet.

"What do you mean?" It was Donna's turn to start asking questions.

"I mean Cricket Boy and Sandshoes and I are all the Doctor."

"Sandshoes," Ten muttered mutinously. "Why _Sandshoes?_ "

"But how can you all be the Doctor? I mean, you all look different," Donna looked around at all of the Doctors, taking in their separate appearances.

"Donna," Ten said. "It's… Martian stuff. Kind of hard to explain."

"You're not Martian, Doctor," Tegan pointed out.

"No, We… I… we're not," Ten acknowledged, but he neglected to explain his and Donna's joke. He turned to Adric.

"How are you, Adric?" he asked. Adric seemed to be a little taken aback at being singled out.

"Fine."

"Good. Now, I haven't seen you before," Ten turned to Twelve. "So I can assume that you're a future me?"

"Yes, you can," Twelve responded.

Five decided to put in his two cents. "What I want to know is," he said, looking worried. "Where is everybody else?"

"Doctor!" This was a new voice. It sounded like it belonged to a sailor, a sailor who had witnessed the Doctor's very first regeneration…

Ben Jackson was running toward the three other teams, panting. Polly and Jamie had stayed behind to help the Second Doctor waft all of the smoke out of their TARDIS. They had crash landed on this planet, and the Doctor hadn't seemed too happy. Polly was the one who had noticed the other people, but Ben volunteered to go and ask them for help. He was almost there now.

He skidded to a stop in front of Five. "Hello, we need help. Our ship crashed!"

The Doctors looked horrified.

"Crashed?" Five asked his former companion. "Can you show us?"

"Sure. Follow me."

The three Doctors and their five companions hurried after Ben as he ran back to his TARDIS. As they neared, they could hear the Second Doctor, Polly, and Jamie coughing inside the time machine. But a few yards away from the smoking TARDIS sat a fifth one, with a pretty blonde girl in a fluffy white coat standing outside. She was looking worriedly at the smoke.

"Jo?" Nyssa heard Ten ask. Ben ran up to the smoking TARDIS.

"Doctor!" he called. "Are you alright in there?"

A voice that wasn't the Second Doctor's spoke up from inside the fumes. "Yes, I'm okay. I might need a little help though. I can't get these three out by myself, especially since we've all lost the door!"

Ben dashed in, and came out a moment later supporting Polly, and Jamie followed. Then the Third Doctor came out with the Second in tow. The moment everybody was out, Five shut the doors.

"Here we are, you midget hobo," muttered Three as Two wrenched himself away and began to cough into his arm.

"You alright, Duchess?" Ben asked Polly. When she nodded in the affirmative, he turned to Jamie. "What about you?"

"Aye, I'm okay."

"Good," Twelve began to usher the five teams away from the broken TARDIS. "Now what were you all doing in there?"

"The Doctor was trying to stop the smoke," Polly explained.

"Then what were you two doing in there?" Clara pointed out.

"We were trying to help," Jamie offered. "But it didn't go too well." He broke off to cough.

"Let's get them into the TARDIS, Doctor!" Jo opened her TARDIS door. Two looked grateful and he and his two coughing companions went inside with Five, who had offered to assist them.

Ten turned to Three and asked, "Was all that smoke their fluid links?"

"No," Three answered. "It was something from the power room. They won't be able to leave here until they fix it."

"Then shouldn't we help them?" Clara said. "You know, fix it for them? Or at least open their doors and let the smoke come out so they can see?"

"No, it'll be fine. The smoke will just dissipate through the TARDIS. Better let it go through there then let it pollute here." Twelve remarked.

"But won't that make the TARDIS cranky?" Donna asked.

"Oh, I doubt it will make her as cranky as Heathrow does. Isn't that right, Doctor?" Tegan called with a pointed look towards Three's TARDIS. The group could hear Five sigh loudly from inside it.

"Doctors," Nyssa said, pulling their attention away from the broken capsule. "There's more people over there!" She pointed towards the distance, where four more people- two men and two women- could be seen. The men were heard long before it became clear who they were.

"Oi! Says the man wearing a rainbow!"

"Says the man wearing a fez!"

"Fezzes are cool."

"Like bowties?" The Sixth Doctor snorted.

"Yes." The Eleventh straightened his own bow tie. His companion, Amy Pond, stifled a laugh at his behavior. The Doctors sauntered forward, and Amy and Six's companion Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown hurried to keep up.

"Good morning, all!" Eleven greeted the ever-growing group of Doctors and companions. "At least, I hope it's a good morning. Anyway, hello Ben, Jo, Nyssa… Tegan… Adric…" he trailed off as he realized that there were more TARDIS teams gathered than just he and Six. Clara, however, seemed very happy to see him.

"Doctor!" she exclaimed. Every Doctor looked at her.

"Which one, my dear, since there seems to be…" Six broke off to count. "One, two, three, four, five, six, _seven_ of us! My, my. This has all the makings of a paradox."

"Oh, you aren't going to make us leave, are you? Not as the party is getting started?" a deep voice asked. The Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctors strolled forward, along with their companions Sarah Jane Smith, Ace McShane, and Anji Kapoor and Fitz Kreiner.

"Why not? Rainbow's right, after all," Twelve said. Six's head slowly turned toward Twelve.

" _Rainbow_?"

"Why not? You look like you've killed one and now you're wearing it's pelt. The Nemean Rainbow," Twelve teased.

"It's not as bad as his bow tie," Six jerked his thumb in Eleven's direction.

"Bow ties are cool!" Eleven insisted. "And Five wears a _plant!_ "

"Stop your chattering," commanded an old man. He stood at the top of the hill that Twelve, Clara, Five, Nyssa, Adric, Tegan, and Ben had run down in order to assist Two, Polly, and Jamie. Around the man were three other men, one in a leather jacket with a severe close-cropped haircut, one with floppy dark hair who was wearing a suit and one wearing a very nice dark overcoat, and three women, one of whom looked about 15. There was also a slightly older girl, about nineteen or twenty, with long blonde hair, and a woman in her thirties.

The older man walked towards the bickering Doctors. As he approached, they immediately shut up. The youngest girl, who was known as Susan Foreman, rushed after him.

"Grandfather," she said in a low voice. "How many more of you are there?"

Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, and the Ninth Doctor caught up to their companions just as Jo, Jamie, Polly, Two, and Five exited Three's TARDIS. They looked worried.

"What's wrong?" Peri asked them. Five responded.

"The TARDIS isn't working. It doesn't respond. It's dead."

Almost on cue, the Cloister Bell rang.

"Trouble," was all Twelve said.


	2. Troughton

_Chapter 2_

"We've got to get out of here!" Seven said.

"But how?" Two retorted. "My TARDIS, and Three's, aren't working!"

"Then we can fix it!" Ten snapped.

"We tried. Three's TARDIS wasn't responding!"

Seeing that One was getting ready to talk, Ace shouted at the top of her lungs.

"OI! Listen up you lot!"

"Thank you," One acknowledged her. "Now it seems we must try to get some order out of this chaos, hmm? Now, why doesn't everyone who is me raise their hands, and kindly explain to me what this is all about?"

"We don't know," Ten stuck his hands in his pockets. "I mean, we couldn't have done this all on purpose, we'd have remembered this." He glanced at Eight. "Well…"

"But we landed here," Clara offered. "We chose to land here. Nothing forced us to land."

"Speak for yerself," Jamie indicated towards his TARDIS.

"And what's draining out TARDIS?" Jo asked. "We landed here by choice too, and we didn't break it. But it's still not working!"

"She has a point," Six said.

"Then why don't we check our TARDISes, just to make sure they work?" Eleven asked. He jumped up from his little perch, which was a small rock nearby. "Come along, Pond!"

They walked off. Six and Peri hurried and joined them to check on theirs. The Doctors dwindled away until just Two, Three, and their companions were left waiting.

"Maybe if we reversed the polarity-" Three started.

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" Two mumbled.

* * *

Twelve and Clara reached their TARDIS, and Twelve took out his key.

"Come on," he said.

The vast interior was obviously Not Dead, so Clara breathed a sigh of relief. The Doctor however, still looked worried.

"We'd better materialise her down at the bottom of the hill. Just to test."

But just as he hit the dematerialisation switch, a horrid grinding noise filled the room. Clara covered her ears. Twelve dashed to the doors and opened them. The TARDIS had not moved one inch.

"No!"

Five heard his future self's cry and came running.

"Everything alright?"

"No, you need to stop asking that question, nothing is ever alright!"

"Is your TARDIS dead, too?"

"No, but she's... I don't know what she's doing! She's in perfect working order, but she doesn't seem to want to move."

Five looked thoughtful.

"Why don't we go back? See if anybody else has gotten theirs working."

"Sounds like a plan," Clara answered for Twelve. "But where are your companions?"

"I've already sent them down."

* * *

Four and Eight's TARDISes were misbehaving too, and One, Seven, and Ten's were as "dead as a doghouse." In Seven's own words, of course. The only working TARDISes were Six, Nine, and Eleven's.

"We'll have to divide up into teams," One said. "Twelve, since you know all of us, why don't you recommend groups? Companions should probably stay with their Doctors."

Twelve looked around at the group before him. "Three and Jo, you go with Six and Peri. Ten and Donna, you go with them too. One and your group, and Five and his group, you'll be going with Eleven. I would make Two and his group go with Three, Six, and Ten, but though that might be funny, it most certainly won't help us. Two, you go with Nine, Jack, and Rose."

He looked around to try and see who he missed.

"Eight, Fitz, and Anji, you're with Six; Seven and Ace will travel with Eleven; and Four, Sarah Jane, Clara, and I will go with Nine. Any questions?"

Adric had one. "What are we doing, exactly?"

"We're going to figure out what's keeping us here," Twelve answered.

"Well, then," Ten shepherded his group into their TARDIS. "Allons-y!"


	3. Pertwee

_Chapter Three_

Somewhere, in a swirling vortex that exists outside of Time itself, flew a police box that was not a police box.

But now instead of the usual one Doctor and one to three companion, Six's TARDIS held four Doctors and five companions. But still, this console room was not as crowded as Eleven's TARDIS, which now held twelve people.

Ten, Three, and Eight were doing the flying, and Six was poking about in one of the white roundels on the sides of the walls. Fitz was trying to help his Doctor and the two others who were jumping around the console, but every time he would touch a button one of them would slap the back of his hand. It was starting to throb at this point. The girls were chattering on the side.

"What do you think is wrong with the TARDIS?" Jo asked. The other girls looked perplexed.

"Dunno, but it can't be good," Donna offered.

"I'm hungry, do you think the Doctor has anything to eat?" said Jo.

"Yeah. Go through this door, down the corridor, stay to the left, third door on your right." Peri directed.

"Thanks."

"Does your Doctor cook like mine?" wondered Anji

"How does he cook?" Donna asked her.

"Well, somedays Fitz and I get treated to a 5-Star meal, but the next day he manages to burn the toast!" Anji laughed.

"Oh yes, my Doctor does that! Except he also manages to lose the kitchen. How do you manage to do that?" The two girls chuckled together.

"How do I manage to do that?" Six asked. "Simple- the TARDIS likes to change her floor plans every five minutes." This statement was backed up by Jo's return.

"There was no third door," she said.

"Six, what are you doing?" Ten asked.

"You shall see when we get there!"

"Get where?"

"Wherever you're flying us, of course!" Six looked exasperated.

"Where are we going?" Anji asked.

"Somewhere where only the TARDIS knows, my dear girl," Three said. "At any rate, she thinks that we're close. Come and see."

The team clamored around the scanner to see where they were headed. But with the absence of pilots, the TARDIS landed rather bumpily, and all of its occupants crashed to the floor on top of each other.

"Ow!"

"Gerrof!"

"Doctor, you're stepping on my leg!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry!"

Ten stood up. "Well, wherever we are, we're here."

Eight took a look at the scanner. "But where are we?"

"Doesn't it say?" asked Three, curious. He walked beside Eight. "You're right, it's completely blank. Take a look, Ten and Six."

He shoved the scanner so everybody could see it. All it showed was white static.

"Huh," Ten rubbed the back of his neck. "How about we go outside and check?"

"One step ahead of you," came Donna's voice. Ten stood at attention, looking this way and that for his companion. He finally relaxed when Peri pointed towards the door. Donna was standing outside, her hands on her hips, and smiling smugly at her Doctor.

"I was wondering when you would think of coming out," she smirked as he approached.

"And now for the really astounding portion of this trip- minus you and your faces," Donna said. "Look!" she pointed at the TARDIS.

Ten turned around to see that the others were exiting from a perfectly ordinary rock, not a police box. As Six stepped out, Ten said, "So that's what you were doing, fixing the circuit."

"Yes, though now I know that I need to break it because everybody after me still has that police box."

"Oh, I like the police box," Ten said.

"Yes, I do too," Six agreed. "But I just have a feeling that we might need the TARDIS to be a bit more inconspicuous this time."

"You did a better job than last time, Doctor," Peri commented.

"Last time?" Fitz was curious.

"He fixed it before, but it worked a little too well!" Peri laughed. "What was it again, a church organ?"

Six was not amused. "Come along." He strode off, leaving everybody to try and catch up.

A short while later, the group stood on top of a cliff. Below were large fluffy things. The team couldn't decide what they were.

"We should go down in teams," Fitz offered. The Doctors agreed. Three, Ten, Donna, Fitz would go down and investigate, and the others would stay up top and try to figure out where they were.

"And if we don't come back in ten minutes, come looking for us, all right?" Ten instructed. With that, the group split, half sliding down loose rock and the other half- as Fitz put it- watching Eight. Six had chuckled slightly at that.

At the bottom of the hill, the two Doctors and Fitz landed easily. Donna however, took a tumble. She clutched her ankle, and winced in pain. Ten hurried over.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she responded, though Ten was not sure if he could detect sarcasm or not. He asked her if she could move her ankle. She tried. It moved, but she nearly passed out from pain.

As Ten was tending to Donna, Fitz wandered over to the fluffy things. Three had identified them as goats. But these were very big, almost twice as big as the average ones on Earth.

"They're actually kind of cute," he thought to himself. He reached out his hand to pet it. But just as he was about to lay his hand on the top of its head, it opened its mouth and he froze.

"Doctors," he said softly. "It… it has… teeth!"

"Of course it has teeth," Three explained. "How else can it eat?"

Another goat crept closer to Ten and Donna and opened its mouth too. They froze like Fitz.

"Three," Ten said cautiously. "Come over here very slowly. Don't make any sudden movements."

Three picked his way to his future self. "Oh good grief! Would you look at that?"

"I am looking at it!" Donna snapped. The goat decided that it wanted to snap too. Its two inch long canines swiped the air, nearly tearing Three's cloak.

"Come on!" Ten practically shoved Donna up the slope and motioned for Fitz to come. Fitz didn't hesitate. He grabbed Donna's wrist and began to assist Ten in dragging her up. Three took the rear, kicking back at the goats who tried to follow them.

They scrambled frantically up the slope, rocks skidding downwards. A few goats were hit. The companions cheered every time one backed off.

Peri could hear loose rocks falling. "Doctor…?" she pulled on Six's sleeve. Eight ventured a little closer to the edge. "They're coming up, but they look like they might need some help." He reached his arm out for the climbing group to grab.

Slowly, each member was pulled up. Panting, Fitz looked over the edge to see if the goats were still pursuing them. They were, and they were practically flying up the cliff, barely touching the side before taking another great bound. In another leap, the highest one would make it up.

"Keep going!" Fitz yelled. He turned sharply, grabbed Anji and Eight by their arms, and pulled them back.

Jo dashed forward and pulled Three and Donna away. They were pulling themselves up when the goat Fitz saw arrived. This one was bigger than the rest, and crashed into Ten. He went down. Six shoved Peri toward Fitz, Eight and Anji and ran to his future self.

"Come on!" he said as he tried to lift Ten up. Ten groaned slightly, but began to move around. Sadly, Six's coat was to the goats what a matador's flag is to bulls- and by now there were about four man-and-Time-Lord-eating-goats than anybody would ever want. The biggest one charged, and its head hit Six square in the back.

"Oof!" Both Doctors were now at the goat's mercy.

Three turned around as Six got hit. He had to stop and think at how ridiculous this danger actually was. Goats! Attacking his future? As if!

"Come on!" Three yelled. But sensing that just shouting would get him nowhere, he raised his sonic screwdriver. "Cover yourselves!"

Six and Ten threw themselves as far away from Three as they could. Rocks threw themselves away too, as Three used the screwdriver to create mini blasts of energy. The two grounded Doctors tried to crawl away to safety, but they were hampered by the blast and stampeding goats. They finally found an opening and they ran towards it and their companions. They shook little rocks and pebbles out of their hair and spit them out of their mouths, and as they drew nearer, Three could hear them complaining and fighting.

"Why couldn't you have moved? Then everybody's past and future would still be relatively safe!" Six snapped. "And not to mention, that this is my favorite coat!"

They slowed down as they approached Three.

"Yeah, and it's our least favorite coat," Ten sassed back, pointing to Three and himself. "And since majority rules, well…" He clicked his tongue, and Six, very annoyed by now, huffed.

"I've only distracted them, you know," Three said, trying to get down to business. "We still want to get back to the TARDIS so they don't keep hunting us."

They ran after Eight and the companions, when they found them all walking around.

"What's wrong?" Ten asked.

"We can't find the TARDIS!" Anji exclaimed.


	4. Baker, T

_Chapter Four_

"Oh, you've redecorated! I don't like it."

Somewhere, in a swirling vortex that exists outside of Time itself, flew a police box that was not a police box.

It did, however, contain eleven confused occupants. Rose in particular, was very, very, confused. She kept looking at Two, Four and Twelve, a very surprised, and slightly concerned look on her face. Two noticed, though she tried to hide it.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked her gently.

"No," she answered. He smiled knowingly.

"No? You're surprised at all of my faces, is that it?" Two pried. Rose decided to trust him.

"A little. I mean, I thought I knew him, but this…" she trailed off.

"Two!" Twelve called. "We need you back on navi-" he cut off as he realized that Two was explaining something. "Get Polly or Sarah Jane to explain it. The old girl's being a bit temperamental." As if to prove his point, the TARDIS rocked a bit. Two sighed.

"All right. Girls, could you explain the changing-face-thing for me, please?" Two beckoned Polly and Clara over.

"Jack, no!" Twelve dove over to the door where Jack was attempting to leave the console room. He slammed it shut.

"Jeez, Doc," Jack rubbed the back of his neck. "You'd think I was a con man from the future, the way you're acting."

"You are con man from the future," Nine said.

"But you let Sarah Jane leave," Jack tried again.

"We trust her," Twelve shepherded Jack over to the others.

"But we can go, right?" Clara asked, trying not to smile.

"Yes."

"What about us?" Ben pointed to himself and Jamie.

"No." The boys broke out in protests.

"Why not?"

"I-We don't trust any of you not to get lost or break something." Twelve said. He looked pointedly at Jack. "Or to nick something."

"Jelly baby?" Four tried to cheer them out as the girls exited, trying not to laugh.

After closing the door, Polly turned to Rose.

"What was it the Doctor wanted us to explain again?" Polly asked. Rose looked away.

"Noffing," she said.

"Are you sure?" Clara asked.

"Yeah, I just said so, didn't I?" Rose looked at Clara and Polly. "And what makes you two special enough to explain this to me?"

"Because I think that we've both seen the Doctor change his face before," Clara said, looking sideways at Polly to confirm this. Polly nodded yes, so Clara continued.

"But to be honest, I'm still not quite used to it," Clara admitted.

"Me neither," Polly agreed.

"What's that all about, changing his face?" Rose asked after a moment's hesitation.

Clara opened her mouth to speak when the TARDIS suddenly pitched downwards, then rocketed back up. The girls dropped to the floor. They stayed there until they were sure that the turbulence had stopped. As they picked themselves up, Four poked his head around the corner.

"There's something interesting going down in the console room, do you want to see?" As quickly as he appeared, the Doctor swept back around the corner leaving Polly, Rose, and Clara to run after him.

They skidded to a stop, and turned around to see what everybody was staring at. It was the doors. They were open, and revealing a bright meadow.

"We didn't move!" Jamie threw his hands up in the air and moved to inspect the console. Two stopped him.

"No, no, we did move, see?" Two pointed at something on the horizon. The other teammates strained to see it. Clara tried to take a step outside to get a better look, but Twelve pulled her back.

"But that's just a storm cloud, Doctor," she protested. "Don't tell me that you're getting scared of clouds now."

"I'm not scared of the cloud, Clara," he said cryptically.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ben asked, but he was ignored. Twelve took a hesitant step out.

"Do be careful!" Two warned.

Slowly but steadily, the group filed out of the TARDIS. They would all eye the cloud with suspicion.

"Look down there," Rose pointed at a silvery figure, marching at the bottom of a nearby gully.

"Oh my word," Two retreated slightly. "Is that-"

"A Cyberman, yes," Nine confirmed.

"They've redesigned," Sarah Jane muttered under her breath. "I hope they're still allergic to gold."

"They are, but have you got any gold on you? No? Didn't think so, come on," Twelve dragged Sarah and Jamie away, nodding for his other selves to do likewise with the stragglers.

"But what about the cloud?" Nine said, looking up. The cloud was much darker now, and had become even bigger.

"Never mind about the cloud for now," Four said, patting Nine's shoulder as if to try and comfort him. But it was clear that Nine still worried.

"Should we get back to the TARDIS?" Polly asked. She rubbed her arms and shivered. Jack graciously removed his overcoat and gave it to her. She smiled in thanks, and he winked. Nine stared and shook his head as if to say, remember Jack, no flirting. Jack winked at him instead.

"Back to the TARDIS?" Four looked shocked at the idea. "Why on Gallifrey would we do that?"

"Because it's cold, Doctor," Sarah Jane said. "You probably don't notice, but some of us don't have that scarf to keep us warm."

"I've got a thought," Two said thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "What if we're in the Death Zone on Gallifrey? That could explain the cloud, and the Cyberman."

"No," Nine's voice was definate. "We are not on Gallifrey."

"But how do you know? The scanner is not working," Four asked.

"We are not on Gallifrey!" Nine repeated. "We can't be!"

"Nine," Twelve was unusually gentle.

"But we can't! You'd know that! You were me, you know what's happened!"

"And I've come after you, seen things that you will not see. Believe me, we can be on Gallifrey."

Nine stared. "But everything we've seen-"

"I will not say a word about your future, so don't try to ask," Twelve walked past Two and Four, who were glancing at each other, confused.

Clara ran to catch up to Twelve.

"Why didn't you tell him?" she asked in a low voice.

"Because he never knew," he answered. "And I'm not changing my own history. Meeting myself is bad, but telling myself of events to come would be even worse."

"Okay, but how are you going to explain that discussion to Scarf and Recorder over there?"

"Oh that's going to be very simple," Twelve said, with nothing to show that he had any intention of elaborating. Clara glared at him, trying to get him to continue. Resigned, he sighed.

"I'm not going to explain it to them."

"Hey!" Jack's voice cut through the air. He was staring up. "Remember that cloud?"

"Of course," Twelve was apprehensive. "What about it?"

Jack pointed. "It's growing fast. It's going to cover the whole sky in a matter of minutes."

The group looked up.

"Well, you're not wrong," Four said.


	5. Davison

Somewhere, in a swirling vortex that exists outside of Time itself, flew a police box that was not a police box.

The biggest TARDIS Team, consisting of the First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Susan Foreman, the Fifth Doctor, Tegan Jovanka, Nyssa, Adric, the Seventh Doctor, Ace McShane, the Eleventh Doctor, and Amy Pond, were quarreling over where to go.

"Stop it, everybody, just stop!" Eleven commanded, leaning on the console. Ian stopped chewing on the ham sandwich he had made earlier, back in his own TARDIS. "Now what were you saying, Susan?"

She took a hesitant step forward. "Since the force that brought us here seems to be able to hijack TARDISes, why don't we try to trace that link back and find the source of this?"

"Yes, that might work!" Five said, dashing forward to the console. He whipped out his brainy specs. He examined the console for a minute before turning to Eleven. "Erm…"

"Need help figuring what dials do what?"

"Yes."

"Here, let me help. Amy, take everybody who isn't Five and Susan down to the power room and give everything she has up here for this. Seven and One will know how to divert the power, just listen to me."

"Keeping us away from the fun," Amy muttered. In a louder voice, she said, "Okay, come along everybody, power room this way!"

As everybody filed out, Eleven turned to Susan.

"So," he said, clapping his hands together. "Let's get to work!"

"The power room is through here, I think," Amy said as she led everybody through the TARDIS corridors. She opened doors at random, and promptly closed them when they turned out that they did not contain the power room. Rather, most of them were closets. How many closets did the TARDIS actually have?

She opened yet another door. It was still a closet, but this time two metal canisters rolled out. Ace bent down and picked them up.

"Ace, Professor!" she said upon examination. "These are Nitro! I've been needing more!" She stuck the canisters into her backpack, where several other, identical canisters were. However, these were in slightly better condition. Ian swallowed the piece of his sandwich that he was chewing then, wrapped it up, put in in his pocket, and pulled a canister out of Ace's bag.

"Hey!" Ace protested, but Ian ignored her and popped open the cap.

"This is an explosive," he said.

"Yeah, I made it myself. Nitro-Nine, I call it," Ace reclaimed her homemade explosive.

"Does it work?" Ian asked, not sure whether to be interested in her awesome chemistry skills, or worried that she built a bomb.

"Of course it does, ask the Professor." Ace said nonchalantly. "Come on, everybody's going to the power room without us."

Ian and Ace picked up their pace, chatting about chemistry. Ian gingerly held the explosive in his hands, though he could not help smiling that this girl had so much talent that she was able to create a working explosive. He could forgive her for blowing up a portion of his school. Well, will have blown up a portion of his school from his point of view, had blown up a portion of his school from her point of view. Or maybe had blown up a portion of his school from both of their perspectives, since she mentioned beating up a Dalek with her old baseball bat (in his room, from the sound of it) the day he and Barbara were kidnapped by the Doctor.

"Where have Chatterfield and the young girl gotten to, hmm?" the First Doctor asked himself. Amy had finally found the power room, and Tegan had noticed that Ian and Ace were missing.

"Probably chatting about chemistry," Seven answered. Right on cue, Ian and Ace walked into sight.

"You know," Ian was saying. "This is really quite amazing. How long's the timer?"

"Ten seconds," Ace said confidently.

"Ish," Seven corrected. Ace looked slightly guilty.

"Ish," she acknowledged.

Back in the console room however, something was wrong. Five, Eleven, and Susan couldn't work it out.

"What if we routed the telepathic circuits into the scanner?" FIve suggested.

"No, that'll do nothing but get us stuck in the Vortex forever," Eleven said.

"I don't know, then," Five was frustrated. "We've tried everything. Even when they give us all of the power from the Eye of Harmony, it still won't work. Have you any ideas, Susan?"

"Sorry, Grandfathers," Susan looked apologetic. "I don't know."

"Not your fault," Eleven said. Silence took over the console room for a few seconds.

"We'd still better try using the telepathic circuits, but for that we'd need more power. I wonder what's taking them so long?" Five said. "I'm going down there."

"I've a better idea, Mr Cricket!" Eleven flicked some switches while his granddaughter and younger self looked on. "Ask them now, from up here!"

Five cleared his throat. "Um, hello? Everybody at the power room?"

Amy's voice crackled back. "Yes Doctor- Doctors?"

"Give us everything the old girl has got. We're about to try and trace the signal that we found and find out who, or what, has hijacked the other TARDISes," Eleven spoke for his former self.

"Oh, yeah, right, about that…"

Eleven's eyes grew wide, and he looked at Susan and Five.

"Amy…?" he called.

"Well…" Amy trailed off, as if not wanting to continue. Tegan's voice then echoed through the console room.

"Oh, just tell them!" her twangy voice said.

"Tegan, tell me what?" Five's voice was level and calm, but he looked like he was trying hard to stop himself from sounding like an angry helium balloon.

"We've got no power at all!"

A dreadful silence took hold of the whole TARDIS.

"Oh dear," said Five.

The console room began to spin around, bucking up and down wildly. Susan reached for the dimensional stabilisers, but another thrash from the TARDIS knocked her against the railing.

Eleven held onto his console for dear life.

"Incoming!" he shouted. "Geronimo!"

The TARDIS shuddered as she hit the ground of… where, exactly? Eleven pulled himself up from his awkward position of both sitting on the ground, leaning on the console, and grabbing hold of the controls. Five and Susan were groaning as they pulled themselves away from the console railing. Eleven leaned towards the PA system.

"Everyone okay down there?" he called. A few muffled groans and exclamations as somebody stepped on somebody else were able to be heard. Finally, Adric was able to speak.

"I think so!"

Ian's voice came through next. "We're as okay as 0 Kelvin!"

Eleven had to laugh at that. "That's nice, Chatterton! You're as cool as you can get! That's very nice to know!"

"It's still Chesterton, Doctor," Ian corrected. One's amused laugh was heard.

"Well, come on up!" Eleven instructed. "I think that you know that we've crash landed, but I want to know where!"

They waited until the power room group returned before going out. What they saw surprised them.

"A maze!" Tegan sounded amazed.

The four Doctors stared at the maze.

"Well, you know what they say," Seven said. "'Try or try not, there is no do,'" he took a step forward.

Seeing his companions' faces, he continued. "Whatever brought us here obviously wants us here. And the only way to know why is to play their game."

"But isn't that just foolish?" Barbara asked.

"No; it's chess," he responded, before heading towards the giant maze in front of him.

"I know what I'm doing," Eleven followed his younger self into the maze, and beckoned his friends to come. "Brave heart, all!"

"If one more Doctor tells me that," Tegan muttered under her breath. With that, they ventured into the maze.

"Professor," Ace said suddenly. "I don't have a good feeling abou-"

Plants began to grow between the group. They twisted around Adric's leg and began to pull him down. Five jumped forward and grabbed him.

Within seconds, there was a near impenetrable wall of ivy and thorns keeping the group separated. Five did a quick headcount of who was trapped with him. Adric, obviously, and Nyssa and Susan were standing a little ways away. Nyssa was quietly trying to comfort the young Gallifreyan. The Fifth Doctor noticed that the way they came in was sealed off with ivy and thorns as well.

"Well, I suppose it's obvious which way they want us to go," Five murmured. Onwards.


	6. Baker, C

"What do you mean, you can't find the TARDIS?!" Six exclaimed.

"She means that, unfortunately, you fixed the chameleon circuit," Peri translated. "Wherever it is, it just looks like another rock!"

"Well, we'd better find it quickly," Ten said. "Our carnivorous goat friends? They're still chasing us."

Fitz groaned. "Will nothing stop those things?"

"I don't know!" Ten was frustrated.

"Doctors! I think I found it!" Donna yelled. "Ow!" she bent down as her injured ankle sent waves of pain through her body. Eight ran over and helped her stand on one foot. Jo circled the rock that Donna had pointed to.

"But where's the door?" she asked. Fitz and Six started to examine the rock with her, prodding all over in search for anything that might look like a door.

Anji felt a rumble in the ground and saw their antagonists come into view.

"Hurry!"

"Found it!" Six yelled triumphantly. "In, in, in!"

The companions filed through the door, and Eight shifted Donna to Ten's care. Ten and Donna were just about to enter when Ten noticed that Eight hadn't moved.

"Come on, Eight! We've got to go!"

"Such beautiful creatures," Eight murmured. He then turned on his heel and quickly followed his future self and Donna into the TARDIS.

"Have you got the state of temporal grace circuit working, Six?" Three was asking.

"Erm…" Six took a moment to think. "I don't think so. That… might have been the circuit I disconnected in order to get the chameleon circuit working."

"Well then close the doors and let's get working on fixing that. I have a feeling that now, temporal grace is more important that outer camouflage."

"Could I just sit here for a moment?" Donna asked. By now she was limping heavily.

"But your leg will heal faster if you keep it in use," Six recommended.

"Please?" she implored. Six's face softened.

"Of course," he said. "Let me go get you a chair." He strode off down through the TARDIS corridors.

Eight and Three stood at the console, ready to dematerialise. As Ten walked over to them however, he could tell that something was wrong.

"We can't lift off," Eight responded to the unasked question. "There seems to be something-"

The TARDIS shuddered, and Anji thought that she could hear the Cloister Bell ring, deep in the heart of the ship. Fitz dashed forward and caught Donna as she lost balance. Six returned, with Donna's chair.

"What the blazes-" Six was cut off too as the TARDIS gave another almighty shudder. Then everything was still. After a few seconds of silence that was broken only by heavy breathing, Three took charge.

"Eight, you stay here with Donna and try to see if we've taken off, landed, or haven't gone anywhere. Fitz, Jo, Ten, you go make sure the Eye of Harmony isn't damaged. Six and Anji, you and I will go to the power room and make sure that we've still got incoming power."

The team split to do their separate duties. Eight and Donna watched as the last of the two other groups left the console room before starting their task. Donna gingerly sat down as Eight made his way to the console.

"How's your leg?" he asked. She was slightly taken aback by the unexpected question.

"Oh, it's fine," she answered, trying to sound nonchalant and mask the pain that was shooting up her leg that very second.

"That was a steep hill; are you sure?" he asked, turning to her. "I'm a Doctor, I can help."

"Yes, it… it hurts very much," Donna couldn't lie to him.

"Can you move it?"

She tried, but only managed a 30 degree turn before she decided that the pain was too much.

"Just a sprain, I think, Should heal within a week or two if you recover fast, and I think that you can." the Doctor diagnosed. Back to silence. Donna decided to ask a question that had been nagging at her.

"Are… you okay, Doctor?"

"Me? Of course I'm okay!" But Donna could see something behind his eyes that suggested something otherwise.

"But sometimes the way Fitz looks at you, like something isn't quite right… my Doctor does that too," she pushed. The Eighth self of the Doctor sighed.

"There's… full spaces of my life that I can't quite remember. It's a bit better now, now that all of my past selves are here, like Six and Three, but still…" he trailed off, realising that he was telling her more than he actually knew.

"You can trust me," Donna offered. "If anything like that happens again, you can trust me to help you. Also, I can get Matchstick Man to tell me."

Eight burst out laughing at "Matchstick Man."

"'Matchstick Man?'" he asked.

"Have you seen him?" Donna laughed too.

"Doctor," Jo asked. "What is the Eye of Harmony?"

"It's kind of the power source of the TARDIS," the Tenth Doctor explained.

"Then why is the Doctor- my Doctor- going to the power room?" Jo still had a hard time believing that all of these blokes were really the Doctor- even if she had seen it happen before. Still, even then there were only three total, and now there was twelve!

"He's checking to make sure that everything is still connected. If the Eye is fine but he's not getting anything, then we have a problem."

"And if the Eye is not fine and he's getting something?" Jo prompted. Ten looked at her gravely.

"Then we've got an even bigger problem," he said. "Come on."

"Hang on," Jo looked around. "Where's Fitz?"

Ten stopped and turned in a full circle, as if he had not noticed that he had lost someone.

"FITZ!"

Fitz ran around a corner, overcoat billowing around him. "Yep?"

Ten and Jo visibly relaxed.

"Something wrong?" Fitz looked perplexed. There was nothing in sight but himself, Jo, and the Doctor, but Ten's tone had suggested otherwise.

"Just… don't wander away again," Ten said, turning back to continue along to the Eye of Harmony.

Whatever it was that was shutting down the TARDIS struck again. In the chaos created by the shuddering timecraft, a nearby closet door opened, and small silver canisters rolled out. Ten recognized these. They had something to do with Ace McShane…

"Nitro!" Ten screamed. Fitz and Jo did not understand him, but they did understand the urgency in his voice. One of the lids popped off of its canister.

"Less than ten seconds!" Ten pulled Fitz and Jo away from the explosives, remembering how Ace never got the timing right. They took cover a couple dozen feet away, the Doctor hunched on one side of the hallway, Fitz and Jo on the other.

Ten seconds came and went, and still no explosion. Ten became a good example of "do what I say, not what I do" as he gestured to his companions to keep down while he himself slowly stood up.

"Maybe these are duds?" he said cautiously, taking a hesitant step forward.

BOOM!

Ten felt himself fly back a couple of feet and land at Fitz and Jo's feet. He pulled himself up, with their help.

"We've got to get back to the console room!" he struggled to go the opposite way, but Fitz was keeping him in place.

"What about the Eye?" Fitz asked.

"No time, we need to get to Eight and Donna. They're in trouble!" Fitz's eyes grew wide as Ten said this, and he released the Doctor. Jo was already running back.

At the exact moment Ten got blasted by the Nitro-Nine, there was something alien in the console room. Well, more alien than usual.

It was a blob, almost like Omega's antimatter blob, except it was not antimatter, and it was not Omega's. It was dark, and inky, and slithering towards Eight and Donna. Eight concentrated hard and sent out a telepathic message to his three other selves: help us!

He tried to reach Donna, still on her chair, but by now she was surrounded and the blob was making its way to him. He backed up against the console and tried to tiptoe around it to get to a thin patch so he could get Donna off of her chair. However, as Eight tried to execute this plan, the Thing grew something akin to a head and snapped at him, effectively keeping him in place.

He watched in horror as the goo rose up around Donna. She was shouting at it to stop, a real fear in her eyes. Eight could not move; he was stuck in place.

In seconds, the blob had completely encased Donna. Then it began to shrink. Donna was not under it anymore. The goo crept closer to Eight, getting ready to make him disappear too.

At that moment, the door to the rest of the TARDIS opened, and the other three Doctors were framed in it, companions at their backs. The presence of more than one Doctor seemed to confuse the blob, and it vanished into the nothingness it came out of.

Fitz and Anji dashed forwards to check that their Doctor was okay, but Ten was left staring at the empty chair that had been for Donna.

"Where is she?" he asked, not bothering to hide his anger. "Where did Donna go?"

Eight could only shrug.


	7. McCoy

The cloud was as dark as night now. Due to all of the Doctors' insistence that they not return to the TARDIS, the group was huddled in a small hollow a slight ways away.

The Cyberman from earlier had gone away, but Daleks, Sontarans, and Sea Devils had also been spotted.

Jack wanted to go out and explore. "We can't just keep sitting here, can we? We landed here for a reason; we've got to find out what it is!"

Jamie, Clara, and Sarah Jane nodded in support.

"But what about the Cybermen, and everything else out there?" Ben argued.

"Doctors," Rose cut across them. "You're all being unusually quiet. What do you think?"

The Doctors looked at each other.

"Well," Two began.

"There's obviously something out there-" Twelve added.

"That's bent on something malicious-" Nine said.

"So malicious, in fact, that it can take control of a TARDIS-" Four added his input.

"And bring it wherever it wants-" Twelve spoke.

"And it brought us here, where dangerous creatures are," Two looked slightly annoyed that he had been interrupted, but pressed on. "So what does that mean? Does it want to hurt us-"

"Or simply scare us?" Four said.

"At any cost, I think that moving around would be good," Twelve said. "Not necessarily exploring, but if we move then whatever that thing is and everything else around here has less of a chance of finding us and trapping us. Is all of me in agreement?"

All Doctors consented, and the group moved out.

By now, the cloud had blocked out any and all sunlight that might have ever existed. The night that was created was now so black that the team could barely see each other. Some Doctors, like Two and Four, had flashlights in their expansive pockets. They took these out and turned them on. The beams of light only illuminated a few feet to the front.

"Be careful," Two said quietly. They crept forward, flashlight beams waving through the darkness. Jamie pulled on Two's sleeve.

"Doctor," he whispered. "It looks as if the darkness is eating up the light!"

The Second Doctor peered ahead, at the end of his light. "Yes, yes, you're very right. Oh dear! This can't be good!"

"What do we do?" Jamie asked.

"We try to stay with the group, for now," the Second Doctor answered. "Come on; they're leaving without us."

Meanwhile, Rose was chatting with her Doctor.

"This cloud," she was asking. "What do you think it is?"

"Dunno. Bit refreshing, not knowing what it is, if you ask me," Nine said as picked his way over some loose rocks. Rose laughed.

"I am asking you!"

"Well alright, then," Nine stopped and helped Rose over some annoying pebbles that kept trying to trip her. "Whatever it is, it is not natural."

"Obviously," she responded. Somewhere in the dark, Jack's voice was heard.

"I'm getting really strange readings, Doctor," he said.

"What do they say?" Clara asked, walking slowly towards Jack's voice. Then she stubbed her toe on a rock and decided to grab onto Four's scarf with Ben, Polly, and Sarah Jane instead.

"That's the weird thing," Jack's face was scrunched up in confusion, and lit up by the light of his Vortex Manipulator. Jamie pulled Jack's arm closer to himself and the Second Doctor, trying to see what was wrong. Jack pointed to his device. "If you see here, the readings are fluctuating. One second the cloud's here…"

"And the next it isn't," Jamie finished. "Like now."

Jack nodded. "And the thing is definitely still here, so-"

"So either something's wrong with your Manipulator, or this cloud is altogether impossible. Unnatural, like Nine said," Four cut him off.

"Doctor!" Polly pointed to something way off in the darkness.

The Second Doctor left Jamie and ran over to Polly. "What is it?"

"Do you see that?"

"See what?"

"Over there, in the darkness!"

Two strained to make out what Polly was seeing. "Oh- oh, yes. I do see it!"

"See what?" Sarah Jane asked. She, Ben, and Nine were wearing identical expressions of confusion.

"It's kind of a- what do you think it is, Doctor?" Polly tried to explain.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Doctor, Polly, come back," Jack cautioned. Two and Polly turned around. They had walked forwards a few yards. Out of the jet black darkness, an inky blob, not unlike the one that had been found in Six's TARDIS, slithered forwards. Rose noticed this.

"Come on back!" she called. "Hurry!"

By now, the other members were beginning to notice the hostile force.

"Oh my giddy aunt!" Two exclaimed as the inky coils wound around his legs. "Go, Polly! Just run!" The Doctor made to follow her, but he could not move his legs. He was stuck. Ben and Jamie ran out to try and grab him, Nine grabbed the back of Jamie's shirt. As Ben grew nearer to the Doctor, he could see that the coils had thickened, forming something of a shell that the Doctor was now nearly wholly encased in.

"Go back, Ben!" the Doctor shouted, just before he was completely swallowed. Polly had reached Ben, and they slowly made their way back to the others. Sarah Jane looked as if she was on the brink of tears, and Rose looked utterly in shock. Jamie had stopped struggling against Nine, and was staring in horror at the spot where Two had been.

All of a sudden, Four exclaimed in pain. A few moments later, all color drained from Nine's face, and Twelve screwed up his face and pressed his palms to his forehead.

"Past… changing!" was all Twelve could manage before passing out.


	8. McGann

Eleven dusted himself off. Once he was sure that all of his limbs were working correctly, he calmly straightened his bowtie with a flourish.

"Doctor!" Barbara called him over. Ian had somehow caught his foot in between the brambles, and was now stuck. Every time Barbara tried to clear some thorns away, he grimaced in pain.

"Here, let me help," Eleven said. He crouched down and whipped out his sonic screwdriver. It buzzed for a few seconds before the brambles retreated. It looked almost like the plants were annoyed by the sound and were straining to get away. The Doctor and Barbara pulled Ian away the moment it looked as if he could be liberated without hurting himself horribly.

"Where is everybody else?" Ian asked the Doctor, who was looking at the plants strangely.

"Everybody else?" he sounded distracted.

"Yes, like Susan, and all of your other selves," Barbara said.

"Oh, I bet that they're all on the other side of this hedge here," said Eleven. He pulled the screwdriver out of his pocket again. "Mind your ears!"

Ian and Barbara barely had any time to cover their ears when tery heard a terrible, high-pitched noise. It was coming from the screwdriver. After a few seconds of the hedge violently pulsing, Eleven lowered his device.

"Impenetrable," he whispered to himself.

"Doctor," Ian began. "I have a few questions."

"Go ahead. Unless these plants try to force us to keep moving, we're not going anywhere until your leg stops hurting. Don't deny it, I'm the Doctor, and your leg definitely hurts, Chesterfield. Now, what are you asking?"

"What is that?" Ian pointed to the sonic screwdriver.

"Oh, this?" Eleven held it up for his first two companions to see. "It's a screwdriver, and it's sonic. It can do everything except wood, which is highly annoying!" he looked ruefully at the plants, as if trying to scold them for not parting.

"And these plants?" Barbara ventured.

"Oh, they're Gallifreyan."

"Gallifreyan?"

"My home planet," Eleven did not seem to want to elaborate. "Well, how are you feeling?" he asked Ian.

"Better, thanks," Ian pulled himself up, with Barbara's help, and stood gingerly on his foot. "I don't think that I'll be running any marathons, but I'll be fine."

"Doctor?" Amy called. Only a few moments before, this hedge had sprung up, separating her from her Doctor.

"Professor?" Ace echoed, a little ways away. The First Doctor dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief as he approached the two girls.

"Hmm? Yes, what is it?" he asked.

"Where- what…?" Amy was at a loss for words.

"Where is everybody?" One asked for her. "On the other side of this hedge, of course!"

"Yeah, but how do we get back to everybody else?" Ace asked.

"We go around, " One said this as if it were obvious.

"Around an endless fence?" Amy scoffed.

"We could make an end," Ace smiled devilishly as she extracted a deodorant can from her backpack. Seeing the Doctor and Amy's uncomprehending faces, she explained. "This isn't deodorant; it's nitro!"

"And what does that mean?" One asked.

"Means you want to stand back!" With that, Ace pulled the top off the can, threw it at the hedge, and ran back.

"Eight, seven, six," she counted under her breath. As she reached "four," the explosive went off.

"You might want to work on your timing," Amy said once the shock of seeing a simple little can explode with that much force wore off.

"I am," Ace replied a little bit defensibly.

The First Doctor walked towards the blast zone to inspect the damage.

"Yes, just as I thought," he muttered.

"What?" Ace jumped forward eagerly.

"Nothing. You know what that means, yes?" One looked at his two young companions.

"Around," they sighed.

Five stooped in front of Nyssa and Susan.

"Are you two alright?" he asked gently.

"Yes, Grandfather," Susan whispered, and Nyssa nodded mutely. Five suddenly sprang up.

"Well, these are certainly new," he said as he inspected his new shrubbery.

"Grandfather, don't you recognise them?" Susan said, drawing a little closer to him. Five looked at her, a confused expression taking over his features.

"Recognise them?" he looked back at the plants, and smiled after a moment. "Oh, yes!"

"What?" Adric asked. Five grabbed his shoulder and turned him so he was facing the hedge too. Nyssa followed.

"They're Gallifreyan thornbushes," Five said, in the manner of a man who had finally discovered something new. "Temporalium spinis, they're formally called. Nasty things. I've always wondered why those Ceruleans loved plants, after seeing these," catching Susan eying his celery, he stood up and straightened his beige cricket jacket. "Allergies," was all he said before striding off down the corridor made by the two hedgerows.

"Gallifreyan thornbushes…" Nyssa said thoughtfully. "I assume that there's only one place where you'd find these…"

"We're on Gallifrey!" Susan looked shocked.

Adric had already started to follow Five. "Come on!" he called.

Seven and Tegan stood alone on their side of a hedge-fence.

"What is this?" Tegan asked, not bothering to hide how shaken up she was.

"I don't know," Seven responded, staring, like his other selves, at the hedges.

"We've got to get back to the group," Tegan decided.

"Yes," Seven agreed. "But not now."

"Why not?"

"Because something's coming."

"Oh, now you're just being melodramatic, Doctor!"

"No, really, listen!" Seven insisted. Tegan shut up for a moment. She could hear footsteps coming from where they had entered the maze. Unlike the other teams, Seven and Tegan's entrance was not blocked off.

"What is it, Doctor?" Tegan whispered.

"I'm not sure, and I'm not eager to find out!" Seven grabbed Tegan's hand and took off down through the maze. She got a quick glimpse of a something shrouded in mist behind them.

The two reached a fork. Seven slowed slightly.

"Why are you slowing? If we hurry up we can lose it!" Tegan asked, panting.

"How about, I go left and you go right," Seven offered. "That way, if there's only one, it can chase one of us and the other can escape."

"And if there's more than one?"

"I'll figure it out. Now go down your end, quickly!"

"But what about you?"

"I'll distract it! Bring it down my end!"

"And if it catches you?"

"Maybe it's friendly. Go find the others, now!" Seven practically shoved Tegan down her fork. "Don't argue!"

"Why not?" Tegan was being what she was best- stubborn.

"Because whatever is happening, it's got the makings of a paradox. If anything happens to you, that may make it worse because you've got to keep on travelling with me. At least try to make it to Heathrow."

"Doctor?" Tegan asked.

"Yes?"

"Don't die. Ace needs you."

"I won't. Now don't waste time! We haven't got much of it to start with, and Five, Nyssa, and Adric need you too." Seven shooed Tegan away, and with a look of great reluctance, she finally obeyed. The footsteps were much closer now. As Tegan disappeared down another bend, Seven could see that she was right- the footsteps weren't coming from just one being, but several dozen.

They looked like military men; marching in perfect sync. They were dressed in all black, with visors covering their faces so that all were identical. Seven put on a smile, and tipped his hat to them as they approached.

"Good morning, how do you do?" he asked. Getting no response, he continue,. "Beautiful weather we're having, but I'm not to fond of what's grrrowing here." To prove his point, he poked his finger on a thorn and winced. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"

The soldier at the front indicated for his troop to stop, and pointed down Tegan's alley. A few men broke off to search for her. Seven stopped his idle chattering and stared at the leader.

"What is it you want?" he asked it. The leader took a sharp step towards him, and Seven bounced back.

"Well, you know what they say," Seven said. The leader stopped advancing and tilted its head, as if confused.

"He who hesitates loses the chase!" With that, Seven turned on his heel and bolted down the corridor. The leader motioned for the rest of his men to pursue, and the chase was on.

Seven weaved through different alleyways and corridors, all while hearing the stomp, stomp sound of the soldiers behind him. He hoped that they had lost Tegan. He remembered liking Tegan, if being a little annoyed with her occasionally. He took a right, and suddenly found himself looking at a blank wall with nowhere to run.

"Oh, dear," he said to himself. As he turned around to face the soldiers, he could almost see Ace. She was nearly invisible, almost like a projection, but despite not being able to hear or clearly see her, Seven knew that she could see him too. She seemed to be shouting his nickname over and over: "Professor! Professor!"

The leader of the soldiers thrust out his hand, but instead of having his men rush forward, the ground underneath Seven's feet grew less and less stable, and he found that he could not move. Ace was near hysterics at not being able to do anything, but Seven was glad to see that the red-haired Scottish girl and his First self were with her. As the floor beneath him disappeared, Seven thought, "Goodbye, Ace," and disappeared at the exact same moment Donna and Two did.

Tegan did not have any better luck.


	9. Eccleston

Team Six

Ten was furious. "What happened exactly?" he asked Eight for the one-hundreth time.

"We were talking, and this thing just came out of nowhere," Eight was explaining for the one-hundreth time. "You saw that."

"Yeah, but that doesn't help me!"

"Then what will?!"

"Calm down, you two," Three chided. "Let's think about this rationally."

"No!" Ten insisted. "That thing wasn't rational. Thinking rationally won't tell us what happened to Donna."

Three gave up. Jo walked over to Ten and gave him a hug. "We'll find her, Doctor, don't worry. We're still here, we can help."

No, I've lost you too. Long ago, Ten thought to himself.

Six cleared his throat. "Ten, I hate to bring this up at this time, but something isn't right."

"Is anything right?" Ten asked, not bothering to hide his grumpiness. Six ignored him.

"What's not right, Doctor?" Peri said.

"The TARDIS," said Six simply.

"What on Earth's that supposed to mean?" Three asked.

"Can't you feel her, deep inside your mind?" Six addressed his other selves. Even Ten took a moment to close his eyes and search for his ship telepathically.

"Something's off," Eight agreed after a second. Ten and Three murmured their agreement.

"I have thus concluded, that we are not standing inside the TARDIS," Six said. "I did fix the Grace circuits, so that thing couldn't have gotten in without a very long and hard fight. Yet it didn't appear to be tired or exhibit anything that showed it had broken in."

"Then where are we?" Peri asked.

"In a very, very good replica," the Sixth Doctor answered.

"Then let's leave," Fitz said. Before anybody could stop him, he turned and tried to open the doors.

"Locked," he jiggled the knob a bit. Six sauntered over to "his console" and activated the door switch. The doors still didn't work.

"Like I said, it's not the TARDIS," Six chuckled.

"And good thing too," Jo remarked. "Have you forgotten those goats?"

"So what do we do?" Anji asked. Six glanced at Ten.

"We find Donna, of course."

"But where do we look? We can't get out, and according to you, this isn't the TARDIS," Ten said.

"According to us," Six corrected. "Because we can't get out, and because this isn't the TARDIS, then the Eye of Harmony would have been replaced with whatever is trying to create this paradox. Therefore, that is where we will go."

"And that's where Donna will most likely be!" Ten jumped up. "Come on!"

But as soon as he said that, his face drained of all color and he crashed to the ground. Jo rushed forward to check on him. Eight slumped to the ground too, but Fitz was able to catch and support him. Three and Six showed signs of extreme pain, but were holding up better than their successors. Six clutched the console for support. He was holding on so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

"Something's wrong!" gasped Three. "Something in the past has gone wrong!"

Team Nine

The Doctors were in varying stages of unconsciousness. Twelve and Nine were sleeping on the ground, and Four had sat down on a nearby rock and pressed his palms to his forehead. Sarah Jane was sitting next to him, going through his pockets to see if there was anything in there that could help. Clara, Rose, and Jamie were trying to rouse the passed-out Doctors, and Jack was hugging Polly while Ben walked around the spot where Two had disappeared, trying to figure out what happened and how to get him back.

All of a sudden, Twelve woke up. Sitting up, he said, "This isn't Gallifrey!"

Groaning, Nine woke up too. "I told you," he muttered. Ben ventured over so he could hear the conversation.

"You okay, Doctor?" Clara asked, helping Nine to his feet.

"Yes, I'm sure I'm all okay," Twelve answered. Four was coming round too.

When he could see that the Doctors were fit to answer questions, Ben asked, "Now what's happened to the Doctor?"

"We're fine," Four insisted. When Ben just looked at him, he asked, "Oh, you mean the little one?"

"Yes!"

"Well…" Four trailed off, looking to his other selves for support. They offered nothing but helpless looks.

"And what was all of this about 'past changing?'" this was Rose.

"Time is not fixed, so it can be susceptible to edits," Twelve explained.

"Like this one?" Ben asked.

"Yes, like this one!" Four huffed.

"So where is he? Our Doctor, I mean?" Jamie asked.

"We don't know," Four responded, after a minute's hesitation.

"But you were him, why can't you remember?" Jamie insisted.

"Because whatever happened to him is the edit. It's technically still happening. We won't know what's happened until the effects catch up to us."

"Effects?" echoed Rose.

"Whatever's happening to him," Sarah Jane answered. Sensing everybody looking at her, she said defensively, "It's just a guess."

"And it was a very brilliant guess," Twelve praised her.

"So what do we do?" Polly now asked.

"We learn where we are, and try to piece together what's happened," Nine said. He began to walk towards the scene of the crime, with Ben, Sarah Jane, and Jamie following. The others went to inspect the TARDIS. Before Twelve could move to follow either group, Clara pulled him aside.

"And if the effects make him regenerate or…" Clara trailed off, trying not to say what she was really worried about.

"Not?" Twelve finished. "If he regenerates, then Three is a slight anomaly. I don't know if that could be fixed or not, with the danger of a paradox created by all of Me being present. And if not, then all of me are in danger."

"How?"

"The effects catching up to me," with that, Twelve turned to help Nine and company.

"But then I'd never meet you," Clara whispered, before heading off to join the other group.

Team Eleven

"Professor!" Ace screamed. Amy was trying to pull Ace away, but girl was strong. They watched as the floor melted beneath Seven's feet, and he disappeared. Ace collapsed to the ground, completely in shock. Amy bent down to try and comfort her, but Ace took out some Nitro-Nine, uncapped it, and threw it at the image in front of them. The First Doctor and Amy had learned by now to Turn Away From Explosive. The image exploded as the Nitro went off.

Ian and Eleven sat down out of sheer exhaustion. They and Barbara had been walking for a while, around twisting corridors and turning back at dead-ends. Barbara walked on a bit before she realized the the boys had stopped.

"Come on, we've got to find the others!" she said, pulling on Ian's arm to try and get him to stand up.

"Oh, couldn't we just rest, Barbara?" he requested, very unhelpfully becoming a dead-weight. "My leg's acting up again, too."

"Yes, couldn't we?" Eleven requested. "My legs are going to start acting up too if we keep going."

"Oh, you two!" Barbara said. She sounded exasperated, but sat down next to them anyway. "But don't you want to see your grand-daughter again?" she asked the Doctor.

"Oh, yes, very much," he responded. "You really have no idea how much," he said in a softer voice. "But we've got to let Ian heal a bit. It'll get stronger if he walks on it, sure, but we don't want it to heal sideways!"

Ian shuddered at the thought. He then remembered that he was hungry, and pulled out his ham sandwich from earlier. As he unwrapped it, Eleven looked at it jealously.

"You still have that, do you?" Barbara asked with a bemused expression.

"Yes," he responded. Ian was just about to take a bite when a shrieking cry echoed through the walls of the maze. Eleven shot to his feet, and this time Ian allowed Barbara to pull him up.

"What was that?" Ian asked nervously.

"How's your foot?" the Doctor answered with a question of his own.

"Better," Ian confirmed.

"Good. Let's run!" The threesome dashed through the corridors, desperately trying to stay ahead of the cry, which was getting louder.

A few moments later, the source of the cry could be seen.

"A dragon?" Eleven asked the universe out loud. Then he dropped like a stone as his two past selves' timelines changed yet further.

The dragon wasn't very big- just the size of an average house. It had beige-orange scales, with some hints of grey. It had an intelligent look to it, underneath the anger at finding three beings so close to where it lived. And it was hungry, too.

The travellers were now stuck- one unconscious Doctor, one limping Ian, and one now very annoyed Barbara Wright. The dragon roared again, and she quickly assessed the situation. The Doctor was going to be a dead weight on them, too heavy for her to carry even a little, and Ian wasn't going to help because he was just barely standing up. As usual, it was up to her to protect them. Some things just never change.

The king of the lizards stepped closer, and Barbara thought quickly.

If I throw something at it, it might get scared and fly away, she thought. Of course, it could also get more angry… I'll risk it.

She snatched Ian's sandwich, which was still in his hand, and threw it at the dragon. She was aiming at one of it's eyes, but of course, the infernal food hit the snout instead. The dragon reared back, and the food hit the ground. Flying back a few meters, the dragon bet down and sniffed the projectile. This gave Barbara and Ian some time to attempt to move Eleven to the sides of the maze, where he might be safer.

The sandwich went down the creature's mouth in a moment. It looked up and surveyed the three, but now it looked more curious than angry.

Barbara took a step towards it. Ian hobbled forward and grabbed her arm, but she shrugged him off. The dragon just sat there, like a little puppy. It even cocked its head as Barbara drew closer, hand outstretched. She was able to rest her hand on its snout. After a moment, the dragon broke away and flew off.

"Hail Barbara, Dragon-Tamer," chuckled Ian as Barbara drew closer. She swatted his arm playfully. Eleven chose this time to become conscious again. He looked troubled.

"Something's wrong," he said. When he realized that being cryptic wasn't gaining him attention from his giggling companions, he stood up and asked, "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, Doctor," Barbara laughed. Sobering up a bit, she asked, "How are you?"

"In danger of being dead," he replied.

Five stopped abruptly. "Shh!" he commanded. Adric stopped by crashing into Five, Nyssa by crashing into him, and Susan into her. As a result, the whole group ended up on the ground. As they were busy untangling themselves, Five repeated himself.

"SSSH!" The companions froze.

"I can't hear anything!" Adric said after a completely silent moment.

"You can't when you're talking," Five whispered. The group sat in silence for a good five minutes.

"I hear it too," Susan whispered.

"What is it?" Nyssa inquired.

"Distress signal," Five answered. "One of my other selves. Eight, I think. He's scared… There's something in the TARDIS…" Five closed his eyes and reached out telepathically. "Contact…"

Just then, his face screwed up in pain, and he fell over. Adric and Nyssa grabbed him and lowered him slowly to the ground. Susan dashed around them.

"Are you alright, Grandfather?" she asked him. She was very concerned.

"There's something… gone wrong… going to alert… the others…" Five gasped.

"What is it? What's gone wrong?" Adric asked. But Five was already unconscious. Nyssa moved as if to touch him and make sure that he was alright, but Susan stopped her.

"No! If we touch or move him, his mind might get severed from his body!" she cried. "He's trying to contact the other Doctors!"

"How long might that take?" Adric looked confused.

"A few seconds, a few hours, it's hard to tell time in the the Matrix," she answered.

"Matrix?" Nyssa asked, turning away from the Doctor and facing Susan. "What's that?"

"It's the collective hivemind of the Time Lords on Gallifrey. It holds the memories of every Time Lord, and is used as indisputable evidence in trials."

Five woke up, looking confused. "I all answered," he said. "But where were they?"

"Grandfather?"

"I think someone's been interfering with the Matrix!" Susan was shocked.

"Interfering with the Matrix?!" she asked. "Why do you think that?"

"Because… Tegan," Five simply said. Nyssa and Adric huddled closer.

"What about her?" Nyssa asked, though she was scared of the answer.

"It saw her instead of me, and darkness swallowed her up," he whispered. The group sat in silence.


	10. Tennant

Seven had a really bad headache. He groaned as he sat up.

"Ace?" he asked.

"Donna," a voice said. Seven opened his eyes and saw the young red-haired companion that travelled with his Tenth self.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You've been unconscious for about an hour now."

"I suspect that that was my fault," Seven recognized this voice as his Second self's.

"Yes, I think it was," Seven agreed. "Is there anybody else here?"

"Me," Tegan answered. Seven spun around.

"They got you?" he asked, feeling a little bit guilty.

"How about a song?" Two offered, pulling out his recorder.

"No!" both girls yelled. Both Doctors looked down.

"Is my playing really that bad?" Seven asked. "No matter! I can disguise his noise with my spoons!"

"Stop it!" commanded Tegan. "We've got to figure out where we are and what's happened to us!"

"Oh, we are," Two said.

"I think better with music," added Seven. With that, the two began to play their respective instruments, and the companions moved as far away as possible. When they decided that they were far away enough, they began to think.

"What do you suppose happened?" Donna said.

"Dunno. How did you get here?" Tegan replied. Donna thought for a moment.

"I was sitting on a chair, talking to the Doctor- well, one of them, when all of a sudden, this great black ooze appeared. It circled around me, and I couldn't run, because my ankle was sprained. Funny, now it's not hurting.

"Anyway, the ooze just rose up around me, and I was here. You and the question-mark covered Doctor arrived a second later, and finally the recorder Doctor," Donna ended her story, and covered her face with her hands. "What about my grandfather? He'll be worried sick. And my Mum…" she took a breath and looked back up to Tegan. "What about you?"

"We went into a maze, and these wacky hedges began to grow. Me and the Doctor I arrived with got separated from the others, and we heard this awful sound, so we ran away. We reached a fork, and I took one side and the Doctor took the other in an effort to divide and conquer, I guess. But that didn't work, and I think that you know the rest."

The girls fell into silence, listening to the very bad recorder and the somewhat better spoons. Then, Two took his recorder away from his mouth.

"I've got it!" he proclaimed. The companions ran back to the Doctor and the Doctor, and Seven stopped his playing to listen.

"What?" they asked him.

"Well, I haven't got everything figured out, but I'm getting an idea," Two warned.

"Just get on with it!" Tegan prodded.

"The Time Lords!" he burst with excitement. "It's the Time Lords!"

"Hurry up, Professor! You too, Amy!" Ace called. Her companions, the First Doctor and Amy Pond, were far behind her.

"Slow down, child!" One said.

"Yes, please," Amy muttered. Ever since Ace had blown up that image, she had been in denial. Enough so that Amy had to convince One to help her convince Ace that what had happened to the Seventh Doctor was real and not some illusion. Now Ace was desperately trying to find out what had happened, even to the point of racing around in circles calling for her Doctor. They had even encountered a small dragon, though it didn't seem to notice them.

Ace's energy was about to get them in trouble again. She shot down the corridor as fast as she could. Out of nothing, a creature, half woman, half lion appeared. It grabbed her arm.

"Oi! Get off of me!" Ace tried to squirm out of its grip, but it was futile. Hearing Ace shouting, One and Amy picked up their pace. By the time they reached her, Ace and the sphinx were engaged in a shouting match.

"Get off!"

"Riddles!"

"Get off!"

"Riddles!"

"Shut up!" Amy yelled at them. They both obeyed. "Release her!" she commanded. The sphinx let Ace go.

"Thanks-" Ace started.

"Shh!" Amy interrupted. "Now, what is it you want, lion lady?"

"Riddles!" the sphinx growled in a raspy voice.

"Riddles?" chuckled One. "Do you want us to tell you, or you to tell us?"

"Both!" it squealed. "Game, game! Sphinx like game!"

"And then can we go?" Ace asked it.

"No, no! You win, you go!" the sphinx giggled. "I win, eats! Eats for me!"

All color drained from Amy's face. "Are… are we the eats?"

"Yes, of course, dear girl! Who else would it eat?" One said. "Now, proper introductions are in order. You should know who you might be eating, and we should know who might eat us! This is Ace," he gestured to her. "And Amy-"

"Hello."

"And I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor… who?" the Sphinx looked confused.

"Yes. Now why don't we start? No time like the present! Or the past, if you're looking at it in the future, relative to this time. Or the future, if you're looking at it in the relative past! Hm, hmm! Why don't you start?"

"Now?" the sphinx was completely befuddled now. The Doctor's little speech seemed to have done it in.

"Yes! You start, he said," Amy prompted. The sphinx cleared her throat.

"What walks on-" she started.

"Four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?" Amy finished. The sphinx blinked. Her mouth dropped open in an astounded gape.

"Think of something a bit more original," Amy sassed. "Anyway, it's a man. My turn," she thought for a moment. "Forwards I'm heavy, backwards I'm not. What am I?"

"Ton!" screeched the sphinx. "Me turn! A boy and father get into accident and are taken to two separate room to heal. Doctor come into boy's room and say, 'I cannot operate. The boy is my son! How is this possible?"

"It's his mum," Ace replied. "What gets blacker as it gets cleaner?"

"A blackboard," sang the sphinx. "What has hands but cannot clap?"

"A clock," both companions chorused at once. Amy was getting ready to take her turn when the Doctor spoke instead.

"This statement is false," he said. "So is it true?"

The sphinx stared at him. "It must be!"

"But it said that it was false! If it's true, then it must be false!" the Doctor insisted.

"Then it's not true!" screamed the sphinx.

"Then it is true, because saying that it is false while it says too that it is false makes it true!"

The sphinx growled and stepped menacingly forward. "Figure… out… riddle!" But as it said that, the strain of trying to puzzle out the paradox the Doctor created dissolved the creature into nothing.

Ace and Amy stood in silence for a moment.

"Ace, Professor! That was wicked!" Ace was in total awe.

"I try," the Doctor replied. "Now come on- we've got a Me to rescue!"

"What does that mean, Doctor?" Ian Chesterton asked the Eleventh Doctor, some miles away. "'In danger of being dead?'"

"Something's happened in the past that was never supposed to happen," the Doctor explained.

"Isn't that what's happening now?" Barbara chimed in.

"Yes- but this just sped it up. The walls of the universe were already starting to crumble, but now they're starting to collapse even faster. And there's something else, too."

"What?"

"Eight sent out a telepathic distress cry, and Five answered. Five also reached out to every other self, and I know most of me answered. Funny thing is, it didn't work. We should have been able to talk together, in the Matrix, but we couldn't. My consciousness kept circling back here instead."

"And that means…?" Ian prompted.

"Someone's been interfering with the Matrix. Again," Eleven's face evolved into an expression that the Doctor never was- terrified. "It can't be him," he whispered.

Five and company hurried down the corridor in front of them. They had decided to get to the center of the maze, or at the very least, out of it. Anything to find out what had happened to Tegan. Adric had run further, looking down corridors and declaring them dead ends or forks. If they were forks, he'd assign ine heads and the other tails and flip his coin to decide which one to go down.

"Dead end! Fork… left side! Fork… left side! Dead end! TARDIS!"

"Say again, Adric?" Five called.

"The TARDIS. It's here!" Adric sounded perplexed. The rest of his group caught up to him. There was the TARDIS, standing in the middle of the corridor in all of its majestic blue glory.

"Come on," Five said, striding forward and taking out his key.

"Doctor," Nyssa warned, but Five had already opened the doors and walked in. His companions hurried in after him.

The sight inside was weird. The Tenth, Eighth, Sixth, and Third Doctors were in the console room with their companions. Susan noticed that the red-haired girl was absent. The two groups surveyed each other for a moment.

"And this is when 'complicated' becomes an understatement," Six noted.


	11. Smith

Team Six (With Five's group)

"What about the goats?" Fitz asked.

"What goats?" Five was oblivious.

"Outside!"

"There were no goats outside," Five and Fitz were getting more and more confused.

"Grandfather?" Susan pointed to the door handles. "We're locked in!"

"Those doors were locked ever since we got in," Ten said. "So how did you get in?"

Five held up his key. "I used this."

"But this isn't the TARDIS," Three said.

"Not the TARDIS?" asked Adric. Six filled them in on everything, starting at the goats and ending when he discovered that they were in a fake time machine.

"It seems that what happened to Donna also happened to Tegan," Five thought out loud. "And our Second self as well."

"And Seventh," Ten grumbled.

"Seventh? Something to look forward to, I suppose," Five joked. Nobody smiled. "To the Eye of Harmony?" he asked. Ten grinned from ear to ear.

"I was wondering when we'd get to that! To the Eye!"

Team Nine

"Did you find anything?" Jack asked. The TARDIS Inspection had found nothing unusual. Well, they found out that some wires in the console weren't connected right, and Four had taken up a whole hour trying to fix them. He seemed satisfied with his work, but Rose wasn't sure. She thought that he had put them back in the exact same spots.

"Nothing," Ben sat down on a rock, putting his head in his hands. "You'd think nothing had happened, looking at it!"

"Hang on," Sarah Jane squatted down and poked a patch of dirt with a stick. The rest of the group grew silent and watched her. At last, she found what she was looking for- a small hole, covered by dirt. Polly sat down beside her.

"What's that?" she asked.

"A hole," Sarah replied, though not unkindly.

"I know that, but why's it important?"

"It wasn't here before," Sarah let the statement hang in the air for a moment.

"You're right," Jamie sat down with them and brushed away some more dirt. More holes appeared. Then they heard a faint popping sound coming from beneath the ground. The three companions closest instinctively leaned backwards. A rush of fire spat up from the hole closest to Polly's hand, and the whole group fell away from it. Another pop was heard, and in a moment, Sarah Jane's jacket was on fire. The fire spread quickly, and in a moment, she was engulfed in flames. But just as quickly as the flames appeared, they died.

Four rushed over to his companion, who seemed unharmed, but terrified. Nothing about her would ever suggest that she had just been on fire.

"How are you?" Four asked her.

"Fi-fine," she said shakily. Her knees were trembling, and Jack ran over to help her sit down. Twelve however, was looking at the holes.

"It all seems to be a game," he was saying. "A horror game. Almost like it was devised in the mind of a madma-" he suddenly broke off and looked at Nine. "A madman!" Twelve exclaimed. "Do you remember our trial?"

Nine looked confused for a moment. "Our trial?" He began to nod with recognition as Twelve shook his hands all over the place in a crazy hand-dance. "Yes, I remember that."

"And who's the biggest madman here?" Twelve held his hands out as if expecting applause. Nine looked equally excited.

"You sir, are fantastic! Absolutely fantastic!"

The others were having a hard time keeping up.

"Our trial?" Four asked.

"What are you talking about?" Polly and Rose said in near unison.

"You're the biggest madman here," Clara answered, though she didn't really understand why that was important. It was just a fact that she had taken for granted. Twelve pointed at her.

"Yes! Yes! Everybody shut up and listen to what Clara said!" He motioned for her to repeat her statement.

"You're the biggest madman here."

"Exactly!" Twelve began to dance around the group. "He's behind it all! He's creating this paradox! He's the one who kidnapped Two!"

"Wait, Doctor, who is this person?" Clara was getting tired of the cryptic nonsense.

"Me!" Twelve proclaimed.


	12. Capaldi

What is left of Team Eleven

The teams left in the maze met again. One looked around at the people gathered.

"Where is my granddaughter?" he asked.

"Nice to see you too," Ian mumbled.

"We saw a great dragon!" Eleven exclaimed, flailing his arms about.

"We played a riddle game, and the Doctor won using a paradox!" Ace boasted. Eleven harrumphed.

"Barbara fed it a ham sandwich," he said. Amy looked awed.

"A ham sandwich?" she asked.

"It was Ian's," Barbara looked proud of herself, but quickly brought the conversation back on topic. "But the Doctor made a good point. Where are the others?"

Ace kicked a pebble. "They took the Professor!" She seemed to be blinking back tears, but the expression on her face showed clear, undying anger. Ian knew that she'd never stop until she punished the person who had done this. Carefully, he put his arm around her shoulders and steered her away from the crowd, speaking soft words of comfort.

"But what about the other team?" Amy asked. "The one with the handsome Doctor with the, uh… carrot, and his companions?"

"Good question, dear girl, good question!" One looked at the people gathered. "We must not forget that question, for it is important! And we may find the answer when we round that bend," he pointed with his walking stick toward a turn.

"How do you know?" Barbara asked.

"It's the middle of the maze," Eleven answered.

"And how do you know that?" Amy questioned.

"Oh, Amy," Eleven gave her a "but it's so obvious face." "Why else would we be all together? Geronimo!"

"But what about the other Doctor's group?" Ian asked.

"Oh, I shan't think that they'd be coming," One said breezily. "They probably met the same fate as the fourth team. As the young man put it- geronimo."

The team walked around the corner.

Team Six, plus Five and company

"Almost there," Ten said. He walked well in front of the others.

"Almost where?" Jo asked. They had been walking for miles now. Everytime they thought they were close, it turned out to be the "TARDIS" playing tricks.

"The Eye," Ten said, turning around and walking backwards.

"But how do you know that it isn't playing with us again?" she asked.

"I can feel it."

That's comforting, she thought. Then her legs began to give out from sheer exhaustion. "Oomph!" The Third Doctor ran to catch her.

"Why don't we rest?" Nyssa called from the back with Adric, Peri, and Fitz.

"Yes," Eight agreed. "For ten minutes. Does that seem like a long enough time?"

The group agreed, and began to halt. Ten ran back to them.

"But we need to keep going!" he said. Five walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Look," he said in a low voice. "I want to find Tegan as much as you want to find Donna. But the companions who are with us need rest. Remember, they aren't Time Lords. They can't keep up."

Ten sighed. "Sorry."

"It's all right, old chap. Just try to relax for a few moments, and we'll be on our way."

Across the corridor, Six stood up. Peri moved to follow him, but he motioned for her to stay where she was. Ten noticed this.

"Six…?" he asked. Bt Six ignored him, continuing to poke about in the walls. He pushed a certain spot, and hiss echoed through the corridor. He looked amazed. Those around him- Peri, Anji, Three, and Jo- stood in amazement.

"Eureka," Six said in amazement.

"What?" Ten squeezed his way through the group, with Five close behind him. He too stopped when he saw what his younger self saw. "The Eye of Harmony," he breathed. "How could we have missed it?"

Six looked over at him. "Just be grateful that my eyes are keen enough to spot the rough outline of a door. And that Jo needed a rest."

The group funnelled through the doorway into the room that contained the Eye. It was large and ornate, with balconies high above their heads. But when Fitz closed the door, the scenery changed.

Kidnapped Team

"Of course it's the Time Lords," Seven snapped. "It's prrrobably been demanded by the same High Council that warranted my trial. Not yours, but Six's. I remember it all too well," he growled.

"My trial?" Two asked.

"Yes, you get put on trial for interfering," Seven said. "Stay away from World War One, would you?"

Two nodded sagely.

"But what do the Time Lords have to do with this?" Donna asked. "They were all killed, in the Time War."

The Doctors looked at each other.

"A Time War?" Two asked himself.

"Wiped out the Time Lords?" Seven responded. They turned back to Donna.

"Never," Two said.

"Just answer her question," Tegan said. "What do the Time Lords have to do with this?"

Two opened his mouth to speak, but Seven interrupted.

"Well, not all of them. Whoever is creating this paradox by trapping all of Me here is just one Time Lord. He's evil, pure through and through. He'll stop at nothing to achieve what he wants. He'll even go so far as to try and kill Me, and everybody else here."

"Who is he?" the companions asked in unison.

"Who do you think?" Seven smiled mischievously. "Anyway, he's not our problem right now. He's everybody else's. Our problem is that door over there," he pointed to the locked door keeping them in their room. "Oh, I wish Ace was here."

It was Donna's turn to smile. "Well, you may not have her, but you've got me: Super-Temp." She stood up, walked over to the door, and kicked it down in one try. The Doctors jumped up, both registering shock on their faces. Tegan however, was smiling from ear to ear.

"I like you," she said. The team rushed out to confront their kidnapper.

Team Nine

"What do you mean, Doctor?" Clara was alert. What was he saying?

"Well, not me, really," Twelve responded. "I'm talking about a future me who once tried to put me on trial to claim all of my remaining regenerations. A me who is a- a mash-up of all of the evil things in me."

"Not the one who fought in the war," Clara said, hoping that she was wrong. She quite liked that one.

"No, not him!" Twelve looked shocked. "He's probably just stuck in the Time Vortex, much like you were during that Rassilon business." The last part was directed toward Four.

"Very good, Doctor," came a voice from behind them. They turned to see a man in flowing black robes with a silver trim standing atop a small hill. "It is a pleasure that you have solved my mystery. But the time for games is over." He began to walk closer.

"Stop!" Nine commanded. He stepped forward to meet the stranger. Rose tried to follow, but he spoke some low words and she backed up. "How did you gain control over the Matrix? I assume that is where we are?"

"I am the Keeper of the Matrix, yes," the man said. The two were nearly nose to nose. All of a sudden, the man disappeared and reappeared behind Ben and Sarah Jane. "But that doesn't matter. What does is that you do exactly as I tell you. No tricks like last time. You know that they don't work." He disappeared again, but black goo was coming out of the holes and was moving toward Ben and Sarah. They tried to move like the others, but like Seven and Tegan, they couldn't move. In a matter of seconds, they had been transported to… somewhere.

The stranger laughed, and Jamie drew his dagger and began to attack. But the stranger disappeared yet again, leaving the highlander to swat at thin air.

"But because I just stole some friends, have some in return," the man swept his hand across the landscape, and the rest of the teams emerged from nowhere. Susan broke away from Team Six and ran to hug One. Eleven stared at the man in disbelief.

"I was right," he murmured. The in a much louder voice, he simply said, "Hello, Scrapyard!"

This insult jogged Eight's memory. "The Valeyard," he growled.


	13. Jayston

_I_ _know I don't usually make notes, but I just want to wish you all a Happy Halloween, and thank you so much for reading! Fun fact: One year ago tomorrow, I started writing_ The Twelve Doctors!

Ace didn't care who this "Valeyard" was. He did something to the Professor, so he was going to pay for it.

"Oi, Graveyard!" she yelled, taking out her baseball bat. She took a menacing step forward. The Valeyard calmly turned towards her.

"No, Ace!" Amy warned. Black tendrils were curling toward the two girls. Ace attempted to stand and fight while Amy attempted to drag her back. Both failed, and they too vanished. Even more inky fingers snaked towards Fitz, Peri, and Jo. When they disappeared, Ten rounded on his evil counterpart.

"Why are you doing this? Where's Donna?"

"Safe," the Valeyard replied. "And since you are me, why don't you tell everyone why we're doing this."

"To get all of my regenerations, so you can be free to become real, and spread your evil influence across the universe," Ten spat.

"I'm evil?" the Valeyard looked merely amused at this. "Remember, Doctor, we are the same Time Lord. And I didn't cause the extinction of the Vervoids." He pointed to Six. "You did."

Six looked outraged. "Me? ME?! I would never! A whole race? How dare you?"

The Valeyard smirked, but said nothing.

"Owww," Ace moaned, sitting up. Her head hurt. Fitz scurried over next to her. "Where are we?" she asked him.

"I dunno," he said. "Looks like a TARDIS."

He wasn't wrong. They seemed to be in a console room that looked a lot like Six's. Swivelling her head around, Ace noticed that the short man, Ben, she thought, was unconscious, along with the American girl. Amy was waking up, and the smallest of them, Jo, was caring for her.

"How many of us are there?" she asked Fitz.

"I think it's just us, and Sarah Jane. Apparently she's a journalist, so she's decided to do some investigating." He stood up. "Door's locked," he remarked, hitting the doors. They didn't budge. Fitz walked back to Ace, putting his hands into his overcoat's pockets. "Funny."

"What is?"

"The TARDIS my team and I were in. The door was locked too. And the Doctors were saying something about not-a-TARDIS."

"So you think that this, and what you were in, was the Knickeryard's TARDIS?" Ace stood up shakily. The door connecting the console room to the rest of the ship opened, and Sarah Jane walked through. At the same time, Ben jerked awake.

"Doctor?!" he cried. Everybody in the room jumped. After a moment, Jo and Fitz ran over to him and began to explain what had happened. Ben looked perplexed, but accepted it. Ace decided to be helpful and pulled Amy to her feet. Together, they helped wake Peri up, and get her up to date on what was happening. When everybody was ready, Sarah Jane began her announcement.

"I found the missing team members," she said. Beckoning them, she disappeared down the TARDIS corridors. The others followed her, but Fitz had to support Ben until his dizziness stopped. Fitz wasn't unhappy with this.

Ace caught up with Sarah at the front of their little pack. "Is the Professor there?" she asked.

"I think so. I didn't really go exchange pleasantries since I had to come back, but they couldn't have gone far," Sarah admitted. A few minutes and wrong turns later, Sarah successfully found the two missing Doctors and companions.

"Professor!" Ace ran to Seven and gave him a giant hug. He looked surprised, but returned the hug. Two and Ben exchanged a similar embrace.

Donna however, looked concerned. "Where did you come from?" she asked, allowing the slightest bit of suspicion into her voice.

"The Valeyard kidnapped us, like he did to you," Jo attempted to explain.

"Valeyard?" Tegan asked, but was overrun by Seven.

"I was right," he muttered. Involuntarily, Ace took a step away from him and the venom in his voice. Fitz however, was right next to the Doctor.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Is this the other us?" the Second Doctor asked at the same time. But Seven ignored them, and Jo ended up explaining everything, with Amy and Fitz's help. Two grew increasingly worried.

"A plot to absorb all incarnations of me in order to be free to spread his malign influence across the universe?" he mused. "I don't think the universe could cope. Polly and Jamie! They're still out there!"

"Along with Anji and all of the other Doctors and our other friends," Fitz added.

"Come on, then!" Seven began to run down the hallways toward the console room. "Time waits for nomads!"

"But the door's locked!" Amy protested. "And we need a plan!"

"I do have a plan!" Seven's voice echoed. "Ace?"

"Yes, Professor?"

"Have you got any Nitro-Nine on you? I know I asked you to leave it in the TARDIS, but we need something that registers 9 on the Richter scale!"

A wicked smile stretched across Ace's face.

"Ace, Professor," she whispered. Unslinging her rucksack from her shoulder, she spoke louder. "How many cans do you want?"

"Just one question, Shipyard," Four started. The Valeyard ignored him, seemingly trying to hint that exposition time was over. But Four digressed.

"How are you going to get rid of me? I mean, us all being here is enough to cause a massive paradox, but killing us? Won't that make it even worse? And what about you? If you're us, then you'll die too."

"Don't waste our breath, Four," Ten interrupted. "He's turned his TARDIS into a Paradox Machine. That's why the 'paradox' we thought was our big problem hasn't been doing anything too bad."

The Valeyard broke his silence. "Very good, Doctor."

Ten grinned to himself and shrugged shyly. "Well, I am a genius." Twelve rolled his eyes and stepped forward.

"I didn't realize that I could be so single-minded," he said in a low voice. "How long has it been since the trial?"

"One hundred years."

"And you're still bent on revenge? Look at us! This elaborate trap, fuelled by my hatred, my arrogance, and my ability to underestimate myself- it's for nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive! And you did this, because we're an idiot!" Twelve swept his hands around dramatically.

"I beg to differ," Six muttered.

"Shut up," Twelve said. "You are everything evil in me, so you don't see it! You can't see it! You. Brought. Them!" he gestured to the companions. "And then you made the further mistake of kidnapping us! Ace knew that. Come on… you remember Ace… and you kidnapped the Chessmaster! You've got to deal with her now! Clever Ace, with her Nitro-Nine. And we call out Seventh regeneration the 'Chessmaster' for a reason! You're finest hour, Valeyard, and you can't even do it right." Twelve's expression looked like an identical version of Six's patronizing face.

"So you think that you're headed to the Promised Land then, Doctor?" the Valeyard spat. "I told you- no tricks. That includes the eloquent little speeches you so love to make." Black goo began to descend upon the group.

Elsewhere, the kidnapped team had blown their way out of the Valeyard's TARDIS and were hiding, listening to Twelve and the Valeyard confront each other.

"Paradox machine?"

"What's going on?"

"What's this 'Promised Land,' then?"

"How dare he insult my speeches!"

"Oh my giddy aunt! Oh dear," Two fretted. Ben attempted to launch himself up and over the hill to get to the others, but Seven and Tegan held him back.

"We need a plan first," Seven said.

"I thought we d-did, Doctor," Peri asked.

"Yes, but that was before this Paradox Machine," Seven responded. "We need to disable that so that the Valeyard can't kill me without serious consequences to himself."

"But we can't just wait here! The Valeyard needs to be stopped now! We can't wait to disable that machine!" Ban argued.

"Two priorities," Two mumbled. "Save myself immediately, so that the Paradox Machine doesn't need to work, and go disable the Paradox machine so that it can't work."

Ace sighed. "Thank you, Beatles' Haircut. That's what we're working on."

"But what if we split up?" Two asked, clasping his hands together excitedly. "Half of us go to assist the group in trouble, and the other half goes to disable the machine!"

An excited silence settled over the group as they reviewed the plan and searched for any holes. Fitz killed it by asking, "How do we know where the machine is?"

Inside the Goo-swarm, Jack pulled out his squareness gun. "Rose, Adric!" he shouted to the two companions next to him.

"What?" Rose asked him.

"I'm getting readings of life forms at the top of a hill- two are double-hearted. I think it's the kidnapped Doctors and companions!"

"That means Tegan," Adric said, looking surprised, and a little bit pleased.

"Yeah! I'm going to fire this at the goo here, and I want you two to get through it if it works."

"Why?" Adric asked.

"Because we need back-up! You've got to be quick, because I've got one shot before this thing is useless. Ready? Go!" Jack fired, and a large square formed in the goo. After a second, the trio could see the bleak landscape through it. Almost immediately though, the hole began to close up.

"Hurry!" Rose grabbed Adric's hand and the two dove through. Just before it completely closed up, they could see Jack wink at them.

"Come on," Rose said after getting her breath back. "Let's find our friends, yeah?"

The 'kidnapped' team was ready to go to their missions- Ace, Ben, Amy, Seven, Tegan, and Jo

were to go help the others, and Peri, Fitz, Sarah Jane, Two, and Donna were to shut down the machine.

"D-Doctor?" Peri noticed two people climbing up the hill towards them. "Should we be worried?"

"About what?" Sarah Jane responded, trying to see what Peri had. Her face broke into a grin.

"Rose?" she called.

"What?" came the girl's reply. Sarah Jane sat back.

"It's all right," she assured Peri. "She's one of us."

"But who's with her?" Peri asked. Sarah Jane considered, and leaned toward Rose.

"Who's with you?"

"Adric," Adric answered for himself. Tegan became more alert.

"Adric?" she asked. The two escapees finally met up with the group. Despite their usual fights, Adric and Tegan gave each other a small hug.

"What's going on?" Rose asked Seven.

"Well, half of us are going to help everybody down there-" Seven jerked his thumb in the direction of the Valeyard and company. "-and the other half are going to disable the Valeyard's Paradox Machine."

"Right. And where is that?"

"In his TARDIS."

"Yeah, but where is it?"

"Probably where the Eye of Harmony is," Amy spoke up. Rose looked skeptical.

"Everybody's always been trying to get there, this whole time. Makes sense that that would be where that Machine is." Amy elaborated.

"That… does make sense. Who are you?"

"Amy Pond."

"Rose Tyler."

"Pleasure."

"Likewise."

Fitz couldn't take the pleasantries. "Our friends are dying down there, and we're making small talk?"

"Good point," Seven said. "Let's go, everybody! Rose and Adric, you'll be going with the other me."

The Paradox Machine team entered the TARDIS. Being the polite gentleman, Fitz stood aside and let everybody else in first.

"Rose, is it?" he asked Rose.

"Yeah," she nodded.

"How did you two escape?"

"My friend Jack helped."

"Jack?"

"Tall, dark overcoat not unlike yours…"

"If we get out of this, I'm counting on you to introduce us."

"Will do. Where's the Eye of Harmony?"

"This way," With Fitz's help, the team successfully found the Eye. It was in a tall, ornate room, with arches and balconies. The Eye itself was a smoky blue, encased in a stone "eyelid." Tubes and appendages snaked into the Eye, giving off a red glow.

Gong… gong…

"The Cloister Bell!" shouted Two. "We haven't got much time!"

"Doctor," Sarah Jane said. "We may have found it, but how do we shut it down?"

Inside the Valeyard's "storm," the Doctors were struggling. The Time Lord was deep in a telepathic conversation with himself, but the companions were left to be stuck where they were.

"Susan!" Ian shouted.

"Yes?"

"Can you try to see what they're talking about?" he asked. Susan nodded.

"I can try. But don't get anywhere near me or Grandfathers. Our minds could get severed from our bodies, and we'd die." With that, Susan closed her eyes and stood still. All companions quit their conversations, and an eerie silence overtook the group. Within a few moments, Susan was back, breathing heavily. She toppled forward, but Jack grabbed her arm at the last second and set her gently on the ground. Barbara scootched forward and brushed her student's hair away from her eyes.

"Susan?" Barbara asked softly. "Are you okay?"

"Couldn't… find them. Must be… the Matrix. The Valeyard must be manipulating it so I couldn't listen in," panted Susan. "Do you really think that the Valeyard is Grandfather?"

Clara walked over and sat next to the girl, being careful not to bump into the Doctors. She looked Susan in the eyes. "Yes, I think so," she admitted. "But the Doctor can defeat him. I know that we can win."

"How?"

"Because I think that he's won before. The Doctor, I mean," Clara smiled a little. "And that was when there was only one of him. And now there's twelve. Would you like some water?"

Susan looked a little startled at the change in conversation, but accepted the bottle of water that Clara pulled from her jacket pocket.

"Where did you get this?" she asked before taking a sip.

"My Doctor and I were about to have a picnic, and I guess that I took this with me when this all started. Funny, that was only a few hours ago. It feels like centuries."

"Yes."

Silence fell. Then one of the Doctors- Nine- twitched violently. Jamie made as if to try and comfort him.

"No, don't touch him!" Susan screamed, and Jamie froze.

"What's happening?" he whispered, as the shudder moved to Eight, then Three, then Eleven. Susan shot to her feet.

"Something's gone wrong!" she couldn't hide the tremor in her voice


	14. Hurt

Meanwhile, the third group, lead by the Seventh Doctor, slowly approached the weird blob-dome. The Doctor looked like he was struggling hard to remain conscious.

"You all right, Doctor?" Tegan asked. He managed a smile.

"Yes, I'm as right as rubber," he said, rolling the r in "rubber."

"So what's the plan?" Ben asked. "How are we going to get in there?" he pointed to the Valeyard's little "storm."

"He's really playing the villain, your 'other self,'" Amy commented.

"One question at a time!" ordered Seven. "Of course he's playing the villain, he's me. And as for your question, Ben, I daresay we just… walk through." He stood with his back to the dome, gave his companions a cheery smile and tipped his hat to them, and fell through.

"Professor!" Ace sighed. Jumping into stuff was her job. Without looking to see if the other companions were following, she followed her Doctor through.

The sensation of walking through the curtain of goo was… unpleasant. The goo seemed to weight Ace down, and it filled her nostrils and mouth. After a moment, she wasn't sure which way was up or down. She felt a hand grab her elbow, and instinctively pulled away. The hand grabbed her elbow again, much harder this time, and pulled.

Ace found herself inside the Valeyard's little bubble, and Seven relinquished his companion and reached back through the wall. Clara, Nyssa, and Barbara noticed him and began to help him pull Ace's teammates out of their confusion.

On the other side of the bubble, Susan and her group were chatting quietly, trying to find a solution for the Doctors. Polly brightened when she noticed Ben, and waved him over for help. Amy followed his over. Tegan and Nyssa shared a quick hug before exchanging stories. It was then that Jo noticed how quiet it was, and that the other Doctors and the Valeyard were standing still, with their eyes closed. It was an eerie sight. She stood a but closer to the still-conscious Seven and Ace.

"What's going on, Doctor?" she asked.

"I'm battling against the Valeyard," Seven answered. "I'm trying not to let him gain control of me."

"Gain control of you?" Ace was confused. "But there's more of you than there are of him!"

"Don't underestimate the Valeyard. He's everything evil in me, and so he's just as clever," Seven warned.

"What happens if you win?" Jo asked.

"I live."

"And if you don't?"

"I die. It's that simple," Seven looked around and sighed. "I'll never have been born. You two go help the others."

"And you, Professor?"

"I'm going to help myself." With that, Seven closed his eyes and began to help his other selves and buy time for his friends.

However, the disarming team was stumped. They were standing in a circle around the Eye, utterly silent as they tried to answer Sarah Jane's question.

"We need to turn this thing off," Adric mumbled to himself. "It's the only way we can win."

Silence again. Then:

"What's this?" It was Donna, pointing to a small box on the side of the Eye. The others rushed over.

"I don't know," said Two, but he looked very interested in it. "It's not part of the Valeyard's design, I'll tell you that."

"How can you tell?" Rose asked despite herself.

"It's obviously the turn-off switch," Two huffed.

"And how do you know that?" Peri repeated Rose. She and Rose shared an exasperated look. The Doctor was so bad at explaining things!

"Because it's stuck," Two said.

"So?" Fitz asked.

"Well, if the Valeyard would kidnap me, which he did, he'd probably know I'd get free, which I also did. He would also know that I'd find this place, and so if he had this suspicious looking box attached to this devilish device, I would make it unstuck so my enemies would open it and meet something bad. And if he is me and I would do that, so would he. But this is stuck, so-"

"This must be the TARDIS's work!" interrupted Adric. A giant grin split Two's face in half.

"Exactly!" he beamed. "Now, all we've got to is open it and push all buttons inside!"

"But how do we open it?" Fitz asked.

"Oh!" Rose exclaimed. "The Doctor-my Doctor- has a sonic screwdriver that he uses to open stuff."

"The sonic screwdriver, yes, I'd forgotten about that. Thank you, Rose," Two smiled at her. "I look forward to travelling with you."

Rose ducked her head shyly, and Two rummaged through his pockets for his screwdriver.

"No… no… wrong pocket… where are you…? Ah-ha!" the Doctor eventually emerged triumphant. Rose and Donna, used to the complicated wand that their Doctors used were slightly confused. This screwdriver was a just a plain silver rod. Before either could voice their confusion, Two pressed his screwdriver to the panel, and waved it around for a moment. He then grabbed the edges of the panel and pulled. The cover came cleanly off. Inside were many switches and buttons. Two sighed.

"Blast the TARDIS and her weird sense of humour," he said.

"What do you mean?" Fitz asked.

"This seems to be some kind of logic puzzle, but it's not configured in a way that I can solve."

Adric brightened at the words "logic" and "puzzle."

"Doctor," he said, stepping forward a little. "Could I try? I'm very good at these."

The Doctor stared at him for a second, but nodded and allowed the Alzarian space to work. As he got into position, Adric's expression perfectly matched Two's in terms of bewilderment.

"If this is a logic puzzle, why is this button next to this switch?" he challenged the TARDIS. She didn't respond.

"We've got to hurry!" Sarah Jane warned as the Cloister Bell echoed through the TARDIS again.

"I know!" Adric shouted back defensively.

"I've got an idea," Peri offered.

"Let's hear it, then," Rose said.

"What if that isn't a logic puzzle?" proposed Peri.

"I think I'm learning that!" Adric said in a frustrated voice. Peri ignored him.

"Maybe it's an illogic puzzle."

"What does that mean?" Donna inquired.

"Whatever's logical must be the completely wrong thing to do. Try doing the most illogical thing instead," Peri said simply.

Adric glanced up from the box and stared.

"Try it," Fitz prompted. "What's the most logical thing to do?"

"Switch these two switches. But I already did that and nothing happened," Adric protested.

"What's the worst thing to do?"

"Press this button."

"Do that."

Adric obeyed. After a moment: "Hey! That worked!"

Peri was swamped with congratulations.

"How'd you think of that?" Donna asked her.

"My Doctor's always going on about how illogically the TARDIS's circuits are arranged. He says it's part of why he's never fixed the chameleon circuit. I figured the TARDIS would be just as horrible with something like this."

"I look forward to my future ingenuity, if we get out of this," Two said. "How are we doing?"

"Better, I think," Fitz answered. "Adric's pressing all kinds of buttons, and seems to be pleased with the results."

"Quick, I need a color," Adric commanded.

"Blue," Rose offered.

"Why?"

"Because… it was the first color in my head."

"No. You're thinking too logically. Color!"

"Pink," Fitz said.

"No. Pink's the opposite of blue. You're thinking too logically. Stop it"

"Orange!" Donna shouted.

Adric accepted that. About five minutes later, he stood back. The Paradox machine was disarmed.

Yet another silence fell over the group.

"How did that work?" Adric asked to no one in particular.

"We're in the Matrix," Two answered. "And being even more specific, we're in a copy of the TARDIS. The rules of logic don't apply here."

Rose was deep in thought. Fitz poked her in the shoulder.

"What's bugging you?" he asked.

"I was thinking…" she murmured. Rose shook her head. "Nothing. Let's get back to the other Doctors." She turned to leave, but Fitz grabbed her shoulder.

"What were you thinking?" He was genuinely curious.

"If there's no logic, then the Valeyard could win," she said quietly, so as to not let the others in on her suspicions. "There are twelve Doctors, so they could easily defeat him. But since logic's all… weird, who knows?"

It was Fitz's turn to think deeply.

"You're right about anything happening," he said.

"What d'you mean?"

"Whatever the Valeyard is doing to our friends, anything could be happening. He could be winning, and at the very same time, he could be losing. especially now that the Paradox Machine has been stopped. So there's still some hope."

"Thank you, Fitz, for that uplifting speech. But I'd like to follow Miss Tyler's plan, as much as we can," Two said as he passed by them.

"And what's that?" Peri asked.

"Back to the Valeyard. It's time we stopped dragging this climax out."

Soon, everybody was gathered at the Valeyard's storm, which was surprisingly lessening. The team that had come from the Valeyard's TARDIS quickly explained what they had been up to, and they agreed that they had to do what had to be done. The Doctor's fight with the Valeyard seemed to be in stalemate. They were going to tip the scales.

Two found himself bombarded with questions as the twenty-some companions tried to smooth out their plan.

"So, they're in the Matrix, and we are too?" was Jamie's question.

"Lack of logic then dictates that we can get them out of the astral plane, without killing you?" Adric asked.

"So, they'll still be in their battle, it would just be here?" asked Nyssa.

"And we would have some influence?" Clara inquired.

Two wasn't pleased with this. He was all for doing as Seven did, so the many companions he has cared about, was caring about, and will care about would be safe. But as Ian pointed out, even Seven, who was the most strategic of them and knew the Valeyard the most after the Valeyard himself, hadn't been able to do much.

"Yes," he sighed. "To all questions."

"Okay, then," Sarah Jane said. "But why am I always the one asking this question?"

"Which question?" Donna asked her.

"How do we do that?"

"I can… I can get them out. Susan will be able to help me, too, if she wants," the Second Doctor said. He looked at his granddaughter. She looked scared, but nodded bravely.

"Of course I do, Grandfather," her voice rang throughout the valley clearly. Jack's finger jumped to his lips.

"There are things here other than the Valeyard," he cautioned. "Cybermen?"

"Illusions," Two dismissed.

"Aye, well, let's not find out," Jamie mumbled.

"Are you ready?" Two asked Susan. With that, the last two Time Lords joined the battle and all the humans and Adric could do was wait.

The first thing that clued them in that their plan was working was the Doctors' bickering.

"Reverse the polarity…" Three was suggesting.

"We've tried that," Five said. The Valeyard was chuckling softly at his real selves' inability to do anything.

"Shut up!" Seven snapped at him. "You've had enough time to laugh, Deeryard. Now that we- I'm- here, we should be laughing at you!"

"So why aren't you? What I'm seeing is you all bicker, not laugh, while you grow weaker and I stronger."

This statement was punctuated by Ten gasping slightly and falling. Jo and Tegan moved quickly and attempted to catch him. As they grabbed his arms, his eyes flickered open.

"Stronger?" Seven's characteristic rolling r's became pronounced. "You are not any stronger than the rest of me. In fact, I'd say that you're weaker than us.

"How?"

Seven paused, and a tense silence fell over the group. After a moment, the Valeyard opened his mouth as if to say something, but Barbara stepped toward him.

"You're too much like the Doctor Ian and I first met," she said. "To absorbed in yourself to take care of others." With that, she reached out and tapped him lightly on the arm. A collective sigh echoed throughout the valley as the Doctors, the Valeyard, and Susan came out of their "trance." Susan wobbled a little bit, but quickly regained her footing.

Taking advantage of the Doctors' disorientedness, the Valeyard made as if to run away. However, as he turned to run, he found himself staring down the barrel of Jack's gun.

"Yeah, run. Tough guy," Jack quipped. The Valeyard didn't bother to respond, only glare daggers at him. Other than the Tenth, the First Doctor recovered the fastest.

"Now then, young man," he said, stepping forward to address his evil self. "You were going to erase me, hmm-hmm? A bad idea. You'd have created a massive paradox! Enough to bring the universe to an untimely end!"

"I had a machine, old man!" the Valeyard snapped at him, trying to step aggressively forward but remembering Jack.

"Doctor, to you," One said.

"And we destroyed it," Clara said from behind the Valeyard. He turned slowly and looked at her. Ace was immediately beside her, brandishing her deodorant can of explosives.

"If you'd have gone ahead, you'd have erased even yourself," Clara continued. "You'd be the last person in the universe, and from I understand, your erasure would be one of the most painful. Being the cause of it all, I mean."

"Luckily for us, your TARDIS is our TARDIS," Ten took over. "Two's told me how she helped Adric disarm the machine. She's always been a good girl, unlike you."

"There was the one time…" Eleven muttered, looking at Eight.

"That was anti-time," Twelve reminded him. "It was hardly her fault she was homicidal."

"We were homicidal!" Eleven whispered back.

"You are homicidal right now! Shush!" Sarah Jane commanded. They both shushed, however grudgingly.

"You're doing it again, Doctor," the Valeyard was chuckling.

"Doing what?" Six asked tersely. The Valeyard disappeared from his place beside Jack, and reappeared away from the group.

"Talking!"

"Rabbits," Tegan muttered. "We forgot about that trick."

But as the Valeyard threw back his head and laughed at them, Clara looked around. What she saw was twelve Doctors, standing in a semicircle, ready to fight. She dashed up to her Doctor and grabbed his shoulder in a way that made him think that she was Jamie.

"Doctor," she whispered in his ear.

"Clara?" he asked.

"I've had a thought. The Keeper of the Matrix controls this place, right? And that's who he is, and he is you?"

Twelve froze as her words sank in. "I can't do that!"

"I've been talking to your other companions. Apparently you've trapped him in a burning building before."

The Doctor considered. He then stiffened slightly. He was attempting to contact his other selves mentally. On the other side of their ring, Five caught Twelve's eye and nodded slightly. Twelve took a step forward.

"What is this game?"

"What game, Doctor? Do you count going to your death a game?"

"No," Twelve paused. "But just as I talk, so you forget."

"Forget what?" All trace of twisted humor was gone from the Valeyard's face.

"I may be cold, manipulative, aloof, brash, and arrogant, but so are you. And just as you are the Keeper, so am I. And I am also Lord President of Gallifrey."

Twelve dimly registered Three looking at him sideways in shock. But he digressed.

"And with that power, all of me send you out of the Matrix. Out into the Time War. Out into Hell."

And with a single, powerful thought, the Doctors concentrated. Before them, the Valeyard squirmed with agony and screamed silently as he slowly faded from the landscape. Soon, there was only a memory to tell that he was ever there.

"No second chances," Ten whispered. Twelve couldn't agree more.


	15. Hurndall

"Alright, everyone, allons-y," Ten announced. The crowd of Doctors and companions murmured in agreement, and a few began to move toward the Valeyard's TARDIS. Susan ran up to Ten.

"Grandfather, do we have to leave?" she asked. He was about to answer in the affirmative when he looked at her. She seemed so sad.

Please, Grandfather. I want to meet all the other yous and all of your friends, she said in his mind. Giving in, he turned and stopped Six, who was passing, and explained what Susan wanted. Six nodded thoughtfully, and entered the TARDIS to find the other Doctors and talk to them about staying together just a while longer.

"However," Six reminded. "That paradox machine can no longer stabilize us. If we stay too long, the universe could implode."

"I know, Grandfather," Susan said solemnly. When he left, she turned to Ten and gave him a giant hug. "Thank you, Grandfather! It's nice to see that Ian and Barbara did some good for you!"

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctors sent Donna out to bring her Doctor and Susan in. She hesitated for a moment after seeing to two hugging, though Ten looked a little freaked out by the fact that he was being hugged by a girl he had long ago said goodbye to. Donna smiled as she saw the contrast between here and on Messaline.

"Doctor, Susan, we're ready to go!" she called.

Once everybody was inside, there came the trouble of actually flying the capsule back to where their real TARDISes were. Two volunteered first to set the navigational coordinates, but Jamie stopped him.

"With your flying, Doctor, we'll end up on the other side of the universe a thousand years too early," he smirked. Two put on a look of mock indignation.

"How dare you insult my flying, Jamie! Can you find anybody to back your claim up?"

Ben and Polly looked ready to answer when Tegan spoke up.

"I can second him, Doctor," she said, glaring at the Fifth. Five squirmed uncomfortably as Adric and Nyssa tried to hide amused smiles.

"Nine, Ten, Eleven, or Twelve should probably set the coordinates," Seven observed.

Six, who thought that he'd be more than able to set the coordinates perfectly, said, "Why them?"

"Because they've had hundreds more years to learn how to fly the TARDIS properly."

"Yeah, right," Ten muttered. Growing tired of his own ineptitude, Twelve pushed through his former companions and entered the Eye of Orion's spacial coordinates.

As Six prepared to hit the stabilizer right before take-off, Peri warned the others, "Grab onto something." She turned a brilliant shade of red as all of the Doctors turned to look at her.

Vvvvrrrooommmm, vvvvrrrooommmm, vvvvvrrrrooommmm.

About ten or so minutes later, they arrived. Ian was the first one to stick his head out, followed closely by Anji and Rose.

"We've made it," he announced. To Twelve, he said, "Can I come and find you when it's time to go home?"

"You won't need me," Twelve said quickly.

Seeing how some people started to drift toward their respective TARDISes, Susan asked, "Where are you going?"

It was Seven who replied: "To get my spoons."

"Not your spoons, Professor!" Ace complained. After a moment, she asked, "Why are you getting your spoons? Aren't we leaving?"

"No, Ace." Ace whirled around to see that Three was talking to her. "We can stay here for about three hours until our paradox starts to cause major trouble. Until then, Susan and all of me have decided that we can stay here and break a few laws of time." He looked across the clearing to see his companion Jo chatting happily to Donna and Eight. "Besides, I don't think that I'd be able to leave until Ten and Eight do anyway."

Noting that Seven had gone to get his instrument, Jamie added thoughtfully, "I wonder if I could get my pipes out."

"Let me get my recorder!" Two exclaimed, and the two of them headed back to their TARDIS. Fitz ran off to his to find a guitar. Meanwhile, Ben and Polly were looking at each other strangely.

"You two alright?" Rose asked.

"Yeah!" Ben laughed. "But I hope that they're not going to try and play rock for us!"

"Why not?"

Polly chuckled a little herself. "We've stayed up many a night listening to them. They're not bad, but bagpipes and recorders aren't exactly made for rock and roll!"


	16. Gomez

The next few hours passed by quickly. The Doctors got into a fight about which six of them should fly the Valeyard's TARDIS back to the Eye of Orion, and the group decided to stay as long as possible at the request of Susan and a few other companions.

Two, Seven, Jamie and Fitz broke out their instruments and began to play a rendition of "Twist and Shout" by the Beatles (Clara thought that it sounded a bit weird with Jamie's bagpipes, but good nonetheless.).

Ace got a little bored and decided to blow some things up, with Ian being both obsessed with making sure that she didn't hurt herself and excited that someone was intrigued with chemistry for once.

Clara got into a conversation with Jo and Adric that went from how they each met the Doctor to listening to Adric rant about the function of socks and how they could be used in much better ways.

Rose, as promised, introduced Jack and Fitz once the song was done, and they immediately became friends. And promptly started to flirt with each other. Rose left them to it, and wandered over to Ten. They started to chat, and Ten began to walk with a bounce.

Susan gave Nine a giant hug, and whispered some words into his ear.

Tegan, Nyssa, Anji, Eleven, and Amy began a conversation about quantum mechanics (well, Nyssa and Eleven did. The others started to talk about their jobs and their lives.).

Many other companions and Doctors, including Barbara, Donna, Ben, Polly, Eight, Sarah Jane, and Peri, began to swap stories of past adventures. Six would occasionally chime in whenever Peri or his former companions had a story just to make sure that they told it right.

The rest of the Doctors started to go on about the universe and complicated morals, and other things that not even Susan would understand. The only thing they agreed on was that Daleks are Bad.

Two and Three engaged in a semi-serious water fight. It became a full scale war when their respective companions joined in, and pulled in yet more people as they missed each other.

After a few hours, a couple TARDISes began to sound the Cloister Bell, signalling that it was time to go.

Five and team left first, followed by Eight and Eleven. Some more chit-chat occurred, and Nine decided that he needed to leave. Then went Four, Two, Ten, Six, Three, and Seven.

The last two teams, One and Twelve, shuffled awkwardly as they prepared their good-byes.

"So, you're the latest Me," One asked Twelve as they stood watching their companions hug and give advice.

"I'd have thought you'd have figured that out already, after this," replied Twelve dryly. One ignored him and continued.

"You're just travelling with one companion, now, am I? What happens to Susan?"

"She finds a place."

"Not Gallifrey, hmm?"

"We'd never take her there."

"Good. Where then?"

"Where do you think?"

As the First Doctor's companions retired to their TARDIS, Clara looked back at the two Doctors. One was very young, and the other was infinitely old. Clara was thinking the same thing the Doctors were talking about- what happened? The First, while just as old as Twelve in appearance, had a younger air about him. Despite not being as informal as some of his predecessors- Clara was reminded of Eleven in particular- One had a lighter air about him. He wasn't weighed down by the Time War, or seeing days gone by and old friends again, or revisiting horrors that never go away. He was seeing the world, and this last adventure, as days to come.

Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, as Ten would put it.

The last TARDIS dematerialised with a vvvooorrpp, vvooorrpp. The Doctor broke the silence that followed.

"Are you ready to go, Miss Oswald?" he asked, turning to Clara. She smiled.

"As ready as you are, Doctor," she said as she opened her TARDIS doors. But the Doctor waited outside just a while longer, staring at the spot where One's TARDIS dematerialised. He shook himself out of it and followed his companion.

Clara spun around as she heard the door creak shut, with the Doctor leaning on it, deep in introspective mode.

"You alright, Doctor?" Silence. She was just about to ask again when the Doctor spoke up.

"You remember after our adventure in the Dalek, when I asked you if I was a good man?"

"'Course. Why?"

"I'm still asking." He suddenly swung his head around and faced her. "Now that you've met the Valeyard, a coagulation of everything evil in me, you must tell me what you think. Am I a good man, or not?"

Clara considered. "Well, I still believe that you try hard enough. And if eleven of you, displaying teamwork, courage, cleverness, and loyalty were able to defeat the 'evil you,' I'd think that that would say everything. But what do I know about Time Lords? I'm just an English teacher. So why don't you write me a paper analyzing every trait you possess, and get back to me once you've decided if you're good or not." She took a breath, and seeing that Twelve you've decided if you're good or not." She took a breath, and seeing that Twelve wasn't convinced yet, she continued.

"How many friends have you got, Doctor, ready to die for you? I know that you may not see that as a good thing, but I do. Because even though you're debating your goodness, they are all very clearly the best each of their planets have to offer. You have many so good friends in your past, your future, and more importantly, your present." She smiled. "Good people like them don't choose to stay in the company of bad people, Doctor. And if they do, it almost always turns those bad people the right way. If you've taught me anything, it's that, without a doubt. Now can we go home? I need to get to second period."

"Of course, Clara." The Doctor turned to the console and started to pull the relevant switches and push the right buttons that would get Clara back to Coal Hill School.

"I knew you'd see it, Doctor."

"For the record, I haven't seen anything. Nor have you convinced me of anything." But seeing Clara gearing up again to continue her argument, he hastily added, "But let's just leave the matter for now, shall we?"

"Doctor?"

"Clara?"

"I feel a hug coming on." Clara rushed forward and pulled the Doctor into a massive bear hug as he loudly protested.

"NO!"

 _Somewhere in the universe, however, a very different threat lurked. A pale woman, with dark hair tied back into a severe bun, chuckled slightly. On a television screen in front of her was the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald. They seemed to be hugging, but the Doctor looked awkward as his hands were splayed out and whirling around as he tried to push Clara off. Clara seemed to be laughing at him for this._

 _"Oh, Doctor," the woman chuckled. "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor."_


End file.
